Welcome Back, Cyrus
by The Die Hard
Summary: After a summer of reruns, Cyrus rescues Clark. Well, sort of. Much angst. And Lex throws a pitcher of water on Lionel. And Lana grows up! A little.
1. What a Difference a Year Makes

Welcome Back, Cyrus (Even to get a single-word title, I refuse to resort to "Homecoming")  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own none of 'em, more's the pity, 'cause they're missing a bunch of bets.  
  
Timeline and Spoilers: after Exodus, but before WB screws it all up with their Pink Princess Power Ranger (gah). And if you ain't read "Lessons" (self-promoting here, and yeah, I know the darn thing is practically a novel, but tormenting Clark is SOO much fun), then you won't know where Cyrus is coming from, but short form is, he's recovered, and been trained.  
  
Archive: as far as I'm concerned, once it's posted, electrons are public property.  
  
Explanation for stupid reposting: people pointed out to me that the durn thing ought to be in chapters so they didn't have to reread it all to get to the new stuff. SOOORRYY! Actually I thought it was finished when I first posted it, but Lex just wouldn't shut up.  
  
Moral: there's no such thing as happily ever after, but sometimes it's worth trying. A little.  
  
Opening scene: no, Cyrus is not wearing a hat. Or a hood. Or plaid. El yucko.  
  
The bus pulled up to the Smallville station, its hydrogen-clean engine almost soundless, but its air-brake CHWHUFF! as loud as the oldest truck on the road. Technology was still bound by the laws of physics. Compressed air would always be noisy.  
  
Clark winced at the sound. Cyrus, beside him, gave him a sympathetic look. "Still having trouble with the hearing thing?"  
  
Clark sighed. "Actually, I think it's mostly nerves." He looked away. "I could have just run back," he muttered. "It would have been faster. And quieter."  
  
Cyrus laughed. "You contradict yourself more than even the Baron does, and he has way more practice. You're nervous about coming back, but you wanted to get back faster. Have you always been so dichotomous, or just since the business with the voice from space?"  
  
"Always, I guess," Clark mumbled. They got off the bus and went around to the luggage compartment -- Clark, lagging behind, was carrying barely an overnight bag, but Cyrus had packed enough to practically move back to Smallville. "At least, ever since ... I...." He stumbled, and sagged against the side of the bus, breath going out of him in a ragged gasp.  
  
Cyrus caught him automatically, his usual healer / empath aversion to physical touch be damned. This was *Clark*. The reflexes of the past year's training kicked in, and his protective power flared to full strength as he fought back instinctively on the psi level against the waves of pain and sickness engulfing his friend. "Christ, you're burning up. What...?"  
  
He picked up the direction from the worst of the effect on Clark, and looked around to where some entrepreneur had set up a welcome-to-Smallville souvenir table, complete with meteorites. "Oh, hells. Come on, let's get you away from here. Lean on me."  
  
Clark would have protested when Cyrus took his weight across the shoulder -- he knew full well that physical contact put the empath through whatever the other person was feeling -- but he was too short of breath to argue, and too dizzy to stand by himself. He started to shake his head, and decided that would be a bad idea. Cyrus probably wouldn't appreciate being thrown up on, on top of everything else. "Shouldn't," was all he managed.  
  
"Oh, can it, Kal." Cyrus gritted his teeth, less from Clark's heaviness than the effort of countering the cursed radiation poisoning's effects on Clark and trying to shield himself enough to stay functional. "After what you and your friends did for me, there's not a hell of a lot left that I can't do in repayment. Except save the world, maybe. Or Lionel Luthor's soul."   
  
He slid Clark down onto a bench on the other side of the terminal from the souvenir vendor, but kept hold of Clark's hand, concentrating on the flow of healing energy. He was getting pretty good at this. Blast the years he'd wasted hiding his talent! -- instead of learning to use it, learning the nuances of biology and bodies that would have made him so much more effective. He wondered if Clark ever felt like that. Probably. Clark had admitted that he never sought the limits of his powers, and was always more concerned with concealing them.  
  
Clark fell back against the seat, panting, but recovering, faster than even the healer could have accounted for. "Shouldn't ... have hit me ... that hard," he said apologetically. "And I didn't even think to check. Sorry. And thanks. If you hadn't been there...."  
  
Cyrus snorted. "I knew there was a reason I needed to come back with you. Hey, maybe I'm developing a precog talent too. Let's go bet on the horses or something."  
  
"You have definitely changed in the past year." Clark worked up a smile. "I guess hanging out with the wrong crowd of crazy people will do that to you."  
  
"That 'wrong crowd' saved my sanity. And my life. If I act a little crazy sometimes anyway, hey, so what? At least I don't go around saying I'm from another planet any more."  
  
"Neither do I," Clark said quietly.  
  
The empath put his hand firmly on the back of Clark's. "You never did, Kal. And I understand why. But someday, you may want to rethink that decision." When Clark started to make his ingrained objection, Cyrus shook his head. "Not now, Clark. Don't even think about it right now. You're exhausted, and you're scared, and you've got a lot on your plate to deal with in the next few days, and your body is reacting to stress the same way anyone else's does, which is why that crap put you so out on your feet like that. Didn't you get it beaten into your head yet that you're human too?"  
  
Clark looked away. "Only in a ... figurative sense."  
  
"It was only beaten into your head in a figurative sense? Okay, let's fix that." Cyrus smacked him across the side of the head, hard. Clark was still weakened enough that he even felt it, a little. "Lesson one. You have emotions, just like anyone else." Cyrus went to slap him upside the head again, and Clark ducked, chuckling. "You trying to break your hand?"  
  
"I'm trying to get your attention. You're talking to the expert on who is and isn't human in the head, remember? I'll break my hand if that's what it takes to get it through that steel skull. Lesson two. Your mind, your sanity, is not indestructible. And you're way too careless with that most vulnerable part of you." Cyrus made as if to swat him again, but a shout interrupted them before he could actually prove his willingness to smash finger bones on Clark's head. "Clark! Man! There you are! I was afraid you hadn't come after all!"  
  
Clark looked up, and Cyrus turned, to see Pete bearing down on them. Clark stood to meet his friend, cautiously, tentatively. His eyes blurred, and he felt a little sick. He tried to put it down to residual radiation effects, but he knew that would have been a lie.  
  
Then he and Pete were hugging each other, Pete with all his strength, Clark hard enough to make Pete catch his breath. The blur in his vision went away when he squeezed his eyes shut, and ran down his cheeks. "Pete, I'm sorry, I missed you, I'm so glad you're here...."  
  
Cyrus put a hand on his shoulder before the babbling got out of control. "Hey. Watch it, Ka-- Kent, you'll get lectured for public displays and so forth. Hey, Pete, how's it been hangin' back in the old town?"  
  
Pete let go of Clark and dashed his sleeve across his eyes with what he hoped was an unobtrusive sniffle. "Hey, it's been okay, good to see you again ... CYRUS?" His eyes opened wide, just now registering who Clark's companion was.  
  
Cyrus grinned. "I mostly go by Bill these days, but whatever." He held out his hand to shake, and Pete took it automatically, not realizing what a significant gesture that was (though Clark did, and his eyes widened even more than Pete's) for an empath.  
  
Cyrus winced at the contact. "Great, Clark, you cracked one of his ribs. Never mind, I can fix that up in a minute. And Pete -- " Now it was Cyrus' turn for his eyes to go wide. "Oh. I didn't realize that you knew. You been backin' Kal all this time? Good on you, man. Wow, you really *were* worried about Clark. Not one date in all these months? Jeez!"  
  
Pete's mouth dropped open, and his arm went limp, though his hand stayed in Cyrus' grip. "How did you ... What are you....?"  
  
Cyrus looked immensely pleased with himself. "You want to tell him, or shall I?"  
  
Clark ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Pete. About everything. About running. About what I said to you. About -- " He glanced at x-ray over Pete's ribs, and flinched. "About hurting you." His voice dropped. "About everyone I hurt."  
  
Cyrus let go of Pete's hand and slapped Clark across the face, fast and unexpected. "Ow. Dammit, Kal-El, if you don't stop that, I'm going to keep hitting you until I break every bone in both hands. You ran, same as I did. You were hurting, and I know all and exactly about that. You're coming back to us. It's not going to be easy. It wasn't easy for me. But you can do it, and you're going to do it, and I'm going to slap you every time you forget that."  
  
"All right," Clark agreed, subdued. "You're right. And I did promise." He took a deep breath. "Pete, you knew Cyrus -- Bill -- had a talent, right?" Pete was still looking between them suspiciously, the phrase "not another meteor freak!" written all over his face. "What's that got to do with him slapping you around?" Pete demanded, low and hostile.  
  
Clark shook his head. "It's not like that, really. He's trying to help. He's naturally empathic, and his healing talent is, well, he can do things even I wouldn't have believed. The meteors just enhanced his abilities. And he got me away from," a nod to the other side of the terminal, "that. If he hadn't been here with me, I would have been in real trouble. Probably passed out, and wouldn't THAT have been a great homecoming to read about in the papers."  
  
Pete was shaking his head with the effort of absorbing the new information, along with Clark's return and Cyrus' presence, but his eyes automatically followed Clark's nod to the souvenir stand, and his dark skin darkened further with anger. "Why, that son of a -- "  
  
"Pete! It's not like the guy would know, after all."  
  
Pete snorted. "It's not like everyone in town doesn't know the damn things turn people into dangerous freaks? Present company excepted. But he's been warned about putting those things out here. Excuse me while I go beat some sense into someone myself."  
  
Cyrus laughed. "Let me fix up that broken rib first. Only take a few minutes."  
  
Pete stared at him, then shook his head. "I got used to my best friend being -- what he is, I guess I can get used to this too. No, I want to keep a mad on for a few minutes. You might have something else to fix up after I finish," he flexed his hand into a fist, eyes narrowing, "explaining things." He looked at Clark, who smiled tiredly. Pete, at least, hadn't changed. "Why don't you go wait in the car, man? I can help Cyrus, uh, Bill, with the bags."  
  
Clark nodded in acquiescence. Cyrus looked delighted. This was going better than he had hoped. "Can I watch? I've picked up a few pointers myself in the past year."  
  
Pete looked at him curiously. "In fighting? Thought Clark said you're empathic."  
  
"Physical training is part of mental discipline," Cyrus intoned solemnly. Clark nearly giggled at the obvious imitation. "Besides, Clark needs some time alone with -- oops."  
  
"Oops?" Pete's and Clark's suspicion was simultaneous, but for opposite reasons. Pete looked confused and then sheepish, Clark just looked confused. "Wow, man, you picked that up too? So you read minds?"  
  
"Telepathy is a whole other kettle of fish of a different color, and not something I'd wish on anyone. But yeah, it was pretty easy to figure out, from your emotional spectrum."  
  
Clark scowled. "What on this planet are you two talking about?"  
  
"Um." Pete all but toed the ground. "Your parents are at your house, getting things ready for you, but Lana and Chloe are waiting in the car."  
  
Clark felt dizzy and faint again. Damn those green rocks, anyway. Cyrus took his hand between his own, soothing him with that moonlight-intangible calm that was emotional healing, and tried to keep the sadness out of his own smile. "Go talk to them, Clark. You knew you would have to, sooner or later. One step at a time."  
  
"Yeah. Thanks," Clark whispered. It was all he could do not to close his eyes against the pain. I can pick up a tractor, he told himself. I'm bulletproof. How hard can it be to just go talk to a couple of old friends that I just haven't seen for a few months?  
  
A couple of old friends that I hurt. Because I couldn't tell them the truth. Because I was scared. Because I was a coward. Because I ran. Give me a tractor to pick up any day.  
  
Cyrus gave him a light shove. "Am I going to have to slap you again? Go on. I'm looking forward to critiquing Pete's methods of 'explaining things'." He rubbed his hands and grinned, as if in real anticipation. "And obviously you can't be the one to step in and finish any fights in this arena. Get used to not trying to save the world on your own, cow-boy."  
  
Clark grimaced at the awful joke. It was enough to get him moving, anyway.  
  
Behind him, he heard Pete and Cyrus falling into conversation like old friends.  
  
Pete had acquired a different car in the past few months (did he wreck the last one? again? Clark snickered automatically, then sobered -- maybe Pete had been hurt, or maybe he had taken up some hard work to earn the money for the silver and dark green convertible, but either way, Clark hadn't been there to share it with him). He knew it was Pete's only because Lana and Chloe were standing beside it, talking in low intimate tones.  
  
Clark slowed, watching them. They looked -- different. (Surprise, surprise.) Lana was as beautiful as ever, but her face, the way she stood, was ... it was as if something had been beaten out of her. She had always struck him as being able to rise above all the adversity in her life, sooner or later, letting herself cry it out, and then finally jerking her chin up and going on. Now, the way she stood as she looked down and nodded vaguely at whatever Chloe was saying, was ... defeated. Empty. All her resources and inner strength gone.  
  
Chloe, on the other hand, looked, well, angry. Not just angry at something right now, not just mad, but angry to the depths of her soul, at everything, everyone, all the time. As if her trust in the whole world had been ripped away, and she would never open her heart or mind to anyone or anything ever again. As if everything she had ever believed had been betrayed. It was an obvious effort for her, being gentle with Lana. She looked as if she wanted to throw all the cars in the parking lot through the wall.  
  
My fault, Clark thought. For hurting them. For abandoning them   
  
Then he realized that he was being egotistical about that. He had no idea what had happened in their lives for the past several months. Why should they care one way or the other about his opinions or actions? They had probably moved on, made other friends, found new interests. Hell, for all he knew, they could both be married by now.  
  
Clark swallowed hard and sought to hold onto the only-recently-learned idea that not everything was his fault, or his responsibility. He hoped Cyrus wasn't tuned in on him. Even the empath would probably buy a souvenir meteor rock to hit him with just to shut him up.  
  
The two girls sensed his presence at the same time, catching his tall form in their peripheral vision. Both froze, for a second that seemed like ten years to Clark. Both turned together to face him, silent, expressions as blank as if he were a total stranger.  
  
Clark fought the urge to run away. He had done that already, and it hadn't helped.  
  
I've just been away for awhile, he told himself. How hard could it be to just go over and say, Hey, how've you been? Smile his practiced smile? Play the normalcy card?  
  
The thought made him want to throw up. Damn those green rocks anyway.  
  
"Hi," he said tentatively. "Um, thanks for coming."  
  
Lana held herself back for one second, her frozen expression melting like an ice statue abandoned in the sun. Then she sobbed and threw herself into his arms, babbling words that mostly consisted of his name, and apologies that made no sense. He held her carefully, delicately, dizzy again, but knowing it was purely from confusion. "It's okay, it's all right," he murmured over and over again, babbling in his own way, as her tears soaked his shirt. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I won't leave again, it was just ... you know, all too much...."  
  
Lana's sobs subsided, as they always did, when she believed she had gotten her proper amount of attention. Clark lifted his head from where it was pressed against her hair and met Chloe's eyes. The anger in those sparking sapphires scared him as much as any green rock ever had. Deep, deadly, barely contained anger, that would never be banked again. Clark was pretty sure that right now she could have hit him hard enough to hurt him.  
  
"Welcome back, Clark," she said with a chill calm like tempered edged steel.  
  
"Chloe." The knot in his throat and his gut would have killed anyone less invulnerable "I'm -- how many times can I say I'm sorry? I had to get you away from there. I, I knew the explosion was coming. I just couldn't tell you." And it made him sick all over again, how easily the half-truths came to him.... "I can't ask you to forgive me. I was ... I wasn't thinking straight. I was stupid. I didn't mean to push you away. I was scared, and I wanted to talk to you, but that was exactly the wrong time, and...." He ran down, mercifully.  
  
Chloe's sharp, glittering eyes raked him over once. "I'll accept that, Clark," she said softly, like the sliding sound of a sword being drawn. "On one condition."  
  
Clark gulped. Cyrus, hurry up and get out here with that kryptonite, so I can pass out in peace. "Name it. I, whatever I can. You deserve it."  
  
Lana, still curled in his arms, frowned up at him. This was obviously not something she had figured on for their great wonderful reunion. Without thinking, Clark released her and stood straight, facing Chloe as if she were a gladiator opponent.  
  
Clark was suddenly reminded of Lex. Amazing how much Chloe and Lex were alike in some ways. "I think you already know what I want."  
  
Oh, I can just guess. Hurry, Cyrus. "No, Chloe, I'm sorry, I really don't."  
  
Her eyes narrowed. If she'd had heat vision, he would have been flash-fried on the spot. "That doesn't cut it, Clark. Don't ever lie to me again."  
  
Clark lowered his head and closed his eyes, accepting the price. Whatever it took, he had to come back to himself. To the people who accepted him, even if they had to learn that he wasn't one of them. To find an anchor, a reason to care again. Pushing his friends away, running away, had nearly cost him his soul. "Okay. What do you want to know?"  
  
Whatever it was that altered her voice, it wasn't triumph. It was something -- gentle. "Nothing, Clark. Your private life is none of my business. Just don't ever lie to me again."  
  
Startled, Clark looked up at her. Okay, he really HADN'T expected that. He'd been underestimating Chloe. Maybe.... He nodded. "I promise." He could live with that.  
  
He'd have to. If he ever wanted to be treated as a person again, to have a home.  
  
Lana moved close to him again, reclaiming the conversation. "Where's Pete?"  
  
Uh-oh. "He's getting the bags. An old friend came back with me -- you remember Cyrus? -- and he brought quite a bit of baggage." In more ways than one.  
  
"And you didn't feel like helping? Hardly the Clark Kent I used to know."  
  
Lana shot Chloe a warning look at that. Clark tried to remember what it had been like, back when words didn't cut him apart and make him want to hide. Back when he hadn't had any trouble breathing. Of course Lana would have shared his last words to her.   
  
You wouldn't like what you see. The Clark Kent you know is a lie.  
  
"Pete thought I might want some time alone with you two." Oh, gods, so easy to leave it at that, half-truths, excuses, evasions. But the laser glitter was back in Chloe's eyes. There were too many obvious contradictions and comebacks to that.  
  
He turned away, leaning over, hands braced on the trunk of Pete's car. Breaking a life-long habit was hard. He sympathized with people who had brainwashed and had to be deprogrammed. Giving up a secret of vulnerability was way harder. No wonder addicts fought against being cured. "Also, there was a souvenir stand by the bus, selling meteorites. I had to get away from there. I ... sort of have a problem, being around the meteorites."  
  
Whatever he had expected in reaction, it was not Lana's gentle hand on his shoulder, and Chloe's understanding nod. "You mean like my old necklace?" Lana asked softly.  
  
Clark managed a bare smile, hoping Chloe wouldn't call him on that particular lie. "Well. Yeah. I had to let you think I was avoiding you because of Whitney."  
  
"Because if every jock and nerd and unpopular geek in school knew they could clock you with a meteorite," Chloe finished analytically, "the Luthors would have cornered the market on the damn things and be selling them by the gram."  
  
This time, Clark's short laugh was nearly genuine. "Lex wouldn't do that."  
  
"Don't bet on it." Chloe's eyes darkened, sapphire rage. "Lionel certainly would." Clark wondered what had happened to make Chloe even more furious with the Luthors than Pete was. "Actually, Clark, I had pretty much figured that out. The only times you fall on your butt or don't save the day is when the meteors are involved. But you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble along the way if you had just told us. Running interference is what friends are for, you think? Or are we just not good enough friends for you to trust?"  
  
"C-Chloe." Where had all the air gone? Maybe Chloe was a meteor mutant. She could certainly hurt him like one. "Haven't you ever had something that you just didn't want to talk about? That you mostly didn't even want to think about?" That was unfair, because Clark knew she did have at least one such vulnerability, the mother who had abandoned her. He didn't bring it up, though. Let her make the connection for herself.  
  
Chloe's expression softened again. Forgiveness. It was like sunlight to Clark. "Yeah, I guess worshiping the toilet isn't something you go advertising, even to friends."  
  
Clark blinked. How had she known about THAT particular effect of kryptonite? Or was she talking about something else, something she herself.... No. He didn't want to know. "Yeah. Like that." The smile was shaky, but not a lie this time.  
  
Lana hugged him, trying to distract him from a conversation that was a little over her head, and he held her, taking welcome comfort in her warmth and familiarity. After a second, he held out his hand to Chloe as well, offering. Not asking, not demanding, not of this angry woman who had changed far more than even he had in the past few months, but offering.  
  
Chloe's anger finally took second place to their years of friendship and caring, and she moved into his arms as well. Clark resolved that, promise or no, it would be a long time before he told her that his hearing was sensitive enough to pick up her suppressed sobs.  
  
Pete and Cyrus (timing no doubt clued by the empath's talent, and Clark was simply not even going to think about how much Bill had been "peeking" in on) chose that moment to yell at them from across the parking lot. "Yo! Big man! Care to lend a hand with the bags here? Cyrus brought enough with him to take up half of Luthor's mansion!"  
  
"Oh, come on, Pete," Cyrus drawled, also at full volume, "If I were going to move in with Lex, I'd have made him buy me all this stuff instead of schlepping it myself!"  
  
And that provoked a round of snickers and giggles entirely out of proportion to the comment. Clark wondered if everyone there knew something he didn't. Granted there was a lot he needed to catch up on, but still.... Maybe he should ask Lex about it later.  
  
Or maybe not. He kissed both girls on the forehead, let them go with reluctance, and jogged over to grab four of the bags Pete and Cyrus were staggering under. "Show-off," Pete muttered. Cyrus just grinned. "And just exactly how much did you tell them?"  
  
"What, you weren't listening in?" Clark needled. Cyrus frowned, and Clark was instantly contrite. "Sorry. Yes, I know you read emotions, not words. That was just a dumb Clark comment. I told them I had to get away from the kryptonite. That's a start, isn't it?"  
  
"It's a good enough start," Cyrus allowed. "You're going to have to tell them everything sooner or later, if you want to keep them as friends. But slow and easy is as good a way as any." Hoisting two of the remaining bags, he took the lead of the parade over to Pete's car and the two girls, his jaunty saunter so at odds with the reclusive self-proclaimed alien of a year earlier that neither Lana nor Chloe recognized him at first.  
  
Clark tried to maintain the amused facade, though it was getting tiring. He kept Pete physically in between himself and the empath. "Ladies, may I present our old schoolmate, William, the boy from outer space. Or inner space, as the case may be. He's decided that Smallville isn't such a hole after all. At least, that's what we're trying to convince each other." His voice failed him at that one. Cyrus wasn't the one who had run away of his own choice.  
  
"William," Chloe said neutrally, holding out a hand in distancing welcome.  
  
Cyrus took her hand without hesitation, making Clark gulp. "Just Bill, Chloe," he said, smiling. "Thanks for all your research. It was good to know about my biological heritage. Turns out my bio-dad's family runs to high blood pressure, so I'm keeping a watch on that. Wouldn't have known about it except for you." He kissed her hand with an exaggerated bow. Pete choked. "You're an amazing person. And trust me, I know amazing."  
  
Clark grumblingly considered a touch of heat vision to the seat of Bill's pants for that bit of overplayed flirtation. Bill caught it, and gave him a sharp raised-eyebrow smile, as if to say, try it. I can dish it out too, alien farmboy.  
  
Cyrus turned to Lana, and took her hand too. By now, Pete had remembered that this was serious work for an empath. "Lovely Lana. How's the Talon doing? I could sell all my worldly possessions for a decent java right now. Buses leave a little to be desired in the comfort department. And Morose Man here could make anyone pass out from boredom."  
  
Clark glared. Pete laughed in relief. The girls smiled uncertainly, but the discomfort level was dissolving, everything calming down towards ordinariness, maybe even acceptance.  
  
Only Clark would ever know how hard Cyrus had worked to learn that control, that yeah-hey-everything's-okay projection with the power of his terribly sensitive touch.  
  
"I'd," Clark started, and had to clear his throat. He was invulnerable to everything except the exploded remnants of his own planet, wasn't he? Trying to finish a sentence shouldn't hurt so much. He fought his conflicting feelings back down, moving away from Bill's automatic attempt to reach for and comfort him. "I think I'd like to, um, go...."  
  
"Home," Cyrus finished firmly. "Yes, you do that. Me, I think I'd like to stop by the Talon and catch up with everybody. Can I bum a ride, Pete? Or is there even room in your trunk for all this crap?"  
  
"Huh? Oh, sure. Sounds like a plan. Clark, you want me to drop you off...?"  
  
"...No. I'd rather ... I need some time to ... think."  
  
"Whatever, man," Pete said neutrally, and Cyrus gave him a sympathetic nod.  
  
"You're going to WALK home?" Lana said in disbelief. "Clark, it's miles and miles!" Chloe said nothing, but that laser rage was back in her eyes again as she waited for his answer.  
  
"No," he said firmly, "I'm going to run. I'm good at running." In more ways than one. "Just another one of those little differences. Like the meteorites." He braced himself.  
  
Lana thought about that for a second that cost Clark centuries of terror and pain. Then she nodded, hugged him, and gave him a quick kiss. It wasn't the passion or closeness they had shared, but he could hardly expect that after having left her, much less letting on to the fact that he was some kind of freak. She smiled at him, a little sadly. Maybe she thought he was "just another meteor mutant," like a dozen others who had terrorized the town.  
  
Though once she had a chance to think about it, she might realize that none of the others had "had a problem" being around the meteorites. Except for being turned into freaks in the first place, of course. Then again, he hadn't specified what his "problem" was.  
  
Chloe, on the other hand, had picked it up all too quickly, to judge from her narrowed eyes. She started to say something, and then, surprisingly, stopped and shook her head. "No one's blaming you for things you can't control, Clark." She glared up at him from hooded eyes, and Clark realized abruptly -- maybe it was Cyrus' presence -- that a good deal of her anger was directed at herself. "But you need to work on those things that you can."  
  
And what, exactly, did she mean by that? "I know."  
  
Cyrus grinned, another deliberate diversion. "You got an 'I know' out of Clueless here! That's quite a talent, Chloe. You sure you're not a meteor freak yourself?"  
  
Clark flinched, but Chloe didn't. "Well, I wasn't here for the rock fall from space, but you never know." In fact, she looked thoughtful. "Too bad I burned my Wall of Weird. I could have been up on it myself. Have to check and see if any others were latecomers."  
  
"You burned your Wall of Weird?" Clark blurted.  
  
The anger in her eyes, expression, stance, shifted, just for a second, to a self-loathing that Clark thought only he had been capable of. "It's a long story, Clark. I'm not going to lie to you either, any more. But this isn't the time for that confession. Maybe tomorrow."  
  
Lana looked at her in confusion, Pete in a mix of fear and pity. Cyrus blinked at her, then his face crumpled. "Oh, Chloe, no. You didn't."  
  
That scared Clark as badly as the thought of facing his adoptive parents again. Her "confession" obviously had nothing to do with destroying her Wall of Weird.  
  
Chloe glared at Cyrus. "You don't have to tell me it was stupid. I figured that out all by myself, thank you. I was mad. But I didn't think I would do any damage." She looked away, and bit her lip. Hard. "I didn't tell him everything. Will that salvage my soul?"  
  
Clark was pretty sure at this point that she wasn't talking about her burning of the Wall of Weird, but he couldn't imagine what she WAS talking about. "Chloe...?"  
  
She shook her head. "Later, Clark. After you talk to Lex."  
  
Cyrus looked troubled. "That might not be such a good idea."  
  
"No 'might' about it, but since when has that ever stopped Clark? Or me." The self-hatred in her voice was plain even to Clark. "On second thought, Pete, I think I'll walk, too. More room for the baggage, anyway. I'll see you guys at the Talon later." She started to suit actions to words and turn away, but Cyrus caught her hand and held it up between his palms.  
  
Chloe froze, and with obvious terrible reluctance, turned back to meet his eyes.  
  
"You're only seventeen," he said gently, almost hypnotically. Clark knew exactly what she was feeling -- as if moonlight were flowing through her, peaceful, intangible, unmistakable. "You're smart. You're proud. You're ambitious. The world is yours to take on, and you want it all. At seventeen, he would have been no match for you. But he's got the power of age and treachery behind him, Chloe. Your only fault is inexperience. And you'll remedy that, too, in time. But for now, you're only seventeen. Forgive yourself for that."  
  
"I'm going to kill him," Chloe choked, anger overflowing and strangling her.  
  
"Do better than that. Taunt him. Scare him. Use him. Ruin him."  
  
Chloe's fury broke like a tidal wave, leaving her clinging to Cyrus, shaking with the sobs she refused to let out, unable to breathe. Even Pete and Lana heard one of the empath's teeth crack as he ground his jaws together in the effort to hold onto his own control. Clark wondered if there were any chores he could do for Doctor Morrell to pay the dental bill.  
  
"I'm ... sorry," Chloe whispered, and pushed him away. Cyrus swallowed and took an uneven breath. Clark figured it was something like having a meteor rock taken away from his heart. He wasn't sure he even wanted to know what had just happened. "Thanks ... Bill."  
  
"You're welcome. Buy me a java at the Talon later?"  
  
"You're on. In spades. And if you want, front page on the Torch. 'The Prodigal Son Returns.' A glowing report on your adventures. Make up whatever you want it to say."  
  
"Hah! Ahead of Clark's homecoming? And what happened to journalistic integrity?"  
  
"I don't think I'll ever be able to use that phrase again," she said bitterly. "And Clark...." Her eyes turned to him, darkening under an uneasy frown. "Clark probably doesn't want people to know he was ever really gone."  
  
"Really" gone? Well, that was a little too true for comfort. The "don't say it" look Chloe and Lana exchanged wasn't very reassuring, either.  
  
"Way cool. So long as you promise to run a photo of my best side." Cyrus struck a deliberately silly pose, chin up and tongue out, causing the girls to laugh a little and Pete to pound on his car. "You are bad, man!"  
  
"I try. Good to know I have the approval of a master. Now are we gonna stand out here like a bunch of teenagers hanging out at a bus station, or am I gonna get some coffee?"  
  
Lana smiled and opened the car door for him. "First round's on the house."  
  
Pete did a doughnut in the parking lot, honking and spraying loose bits of gravel. Chloe walked away, head down, but looking more thoughtful than depressed. Clark ran.  
  
From the jog he did in the parking lot, to the stretching run down the road, to the flat-out acceleration that made tornadoes feel slow once he hit the fields, Clark was trying his damnedest not to think. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to feel. He had spent the whole bus trip with Cyrus doing his absolute best not to think.   
  
The empath had been a life-ring during the trip. Cyrus had challenged him to crossword contest, read bad jokes from a cheap magazine in a loud voice, and told very embarrassing stories about the not-suitable-for-children magazines he'd discovered over the past year, in a dirty whisper that made Clark turn the color of the red star-fall stones.   
  
Cyrus had kept him from worrying. From brooding. From thinking. (Of course, Clark's more unpleasant nature said nastily, that might have just been to keep from being put through the pain of feeling all the bad things himself.)  
  
Clark told what was left of the Kal-El that was Jor-El's slave to just shut the hell up. Cyrus hadn't had to be there at all. Cyrus had volunteered to come back with him.  
  
William had been working hard to make him feel human again. As human as he could ever be again.  
  
With a human mother and father, who were all he had and nothing like him.  
  
Mom. And dad.  
  
Clark came over the rise and went from just short of the speed of sound to a dead stop at the sight of his (his? would it ever be "his" again?) house, sliding onto his knees, digging his fingers into the dirt, a sudden sob cutting off his breath. He spared a second to wish that Jonathan (dad, dad) hadn't cleared the fields of all those shards from the meteor strike. Physical pain and nausea and helplessness would have felt a hell of a lot better right now than the thought of walking in his own front door.  
  
Coward, he told himself. Stupid. Useless. Coward. Cyrus will hit you upside the head again. Probably with one of those rocks. (Pete and Cyrus, he found out later, had thrown the entire collection into the dumpster after Pete's "explanation." Clark's inadvertent x-ray vision had shown him the still-healing break in Pete's knuckles. Nobody else would ever know why Pete and Cyrus had thrown piles of scrap metal on top of it, and covered that with really nasty garbage. Friends, he told himself. Friends I don't deserve.)  
  
Come on. You can pick up a tractor. With one hand. You can walk through the front door. You can talk with a meteorite around your throat. You can say "Hi, mom."  
  
"Son?" The tentative voice made him want to dig into a very deep hole. "Clark?"  
  
Raising his head was the hardest thing he had ever done. Tears washed away the dirt, not that dirt could bother his eyes. But he still couldn't see. "Dad...?"  
  
"I thought I heard ... oh, god ... Clark...."  
  
Heavy, hard, warm hands were on his shoulders, pulling him close. Clark wanted to pass out. The familiar scent, farm dirt and hard work. Sun and sweat and animals and all the living things. Everything he had grown up with. Clark doubled over, choking, clutching the dirt to keep from breaking anything. Anyone. "Dad ... I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...."  
  
"It's not your fault," Jonathan said in a fierce whisper. "Someone ought to beat hell out of me for what I did to you. I'll never forgive myself. I don't expect you to ever forgive me. But thank god, whatever gods there are, that you're back. And you're safe."  
  
"Dad," Clark managed, lifting one hand to reach out and touch, and then did what he had wanted to do pretty much all day, and fainted.  
  
The ceiling that came back into slow fuzzy focus was wonderfully familiar. For one half of a second, the past year didn't exist. Clark smiled from his warm comfortable normal place on the couch. He felt okay, he must have just fallen asleep....  
  
Memory crashed back like being hit by a space shuttle. No. Oh, no.  
  
He made it to his feet before the second was up and almost fell down again. Dizzy. Almost sick. Drained. There was none of the physical gut-twisting burn of the meteorites (though he doubted if the agony in his mind could be any worse), so no cause for such weakness that he could think of immediately. What the hell had he done?  
  
Aside from nearly destroying everything he had and everyone he cared about....  
  
("Haven't you had it beaten into yet that you're human?" The voice, many voices, echoed. Cyrus' was only the most recent. "That you're vulnerable *inside* your head?")  
  
Jonathan must have carried him in from where he found him. Like a little kid, and wasn't THAT a great first impression to make. No wonder he felt sick. Invulnerability was apparently no defense against embarrassment and turmoil and self-disgust.  
  
"Clark?" The soft voice that he'd always associated with sunrise and comfort, home and hearth and belonging. Clark closed his eyes for a second and braced himself before turning to face the woman who had raised him, who he had repaid with so much pain.  
  
"Mom." The word nearly choked him.  
  
She approached slowly, unsure. Afraid of him? Probably. She raised a hand carefully to touch him, butterfly-light, as if she weren't certain he was actually there.  
  
Then she was holding onto him as if he were the only thing in the world, a grip that would have broken bones in a normal person, breathing in sobbing gasps. Clark, mindful of what he had done to Pete, kept his touch as gentle as he possibly could. Her tears were thin and weak, as if she had already cried most of them out. Clark didn't have any left himself.  
  
"Clark.... Oh god, you came back, you're home, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...."  
  
Clark swallowed what felt like every meteor rock in Smallville. "You're sorry? You're ... after what I did to you.... How could you be...."  
  
"Clark, my baby...." He stiffened at the reminder, and she felt him start to pull away, and understood. She shook her head violently, sunset-and-gray hair flying. "No. NO. Clark, YOU are my baby. My first baby. My son. The love of my life. The only person in the world more precious to me than even Jonathan." If possible, she clutched him even tighter. Clark wasn't sure he could have moved away if he'd wanted to. "We failed you. I failed you. I've hated myself every single day since you left. But you came back. Oh, Clark.... If you have to leave again...." She pushed him back the very tiny distance necessary to look up at him, heedless of her tears. "If you have to leave again, please at least tell me good-bye."  
  
Clark decided to faint again. Damn his stupid invulnerable body for not cooperating.  
  
"I'm not leaving," he said, if mouthing the words could be called "saying" something. "I'm never leaving again."  
  
But even as he pressed that breath into his mother's hair (his mother, the only one he had ever known), he realized it was a lie. He would have to leave, someday. Probably soon. Childhood was ending. There was a huge and awful world out there, and he had only gotten a first taste of what his uniqueness -- his gifts -- would demand that he do with his life.  
  
Not rule them with strength. Lead them with strength. Not as a dictator, but as an inspiration. Anything less would be a betrayal of all that he was and could do and be.  
  
"But when the time comes that I do have to leave," he managed, in something a little closer to a voice this time, "I won't be running away. I'll always come back."  
  
Jonathan came back into the room again then, hesitantly, expression uncertain. Apparently, Clark thought, you didn't have to be an empath to know when to put in an appearance, and when to hang back. "Son? Are you okay?"  
  
Clark held out one hand, not letting go of his mother with the other, asking, as he had with Chloe and Lana. He had no right to demand, ever again. But asking.  
  
Jonathan moved into the circle slowly, as if he were wading into cold and unfamiliar depths. It took a long time before his arms closed around Clark and Martha. But once he did, it was with a solid unyielding firmness that made Clark catch his breath at the support.  
  
"I'm ... I'm not sure, dad. I'm not sure anything will ever be okay again. I'm going to try to make it up to you. I don't know how, but I promise, I'm going to try."  
  
"Just promise," Jonathan said, in that too-low and too-steady voice that meant he was fighting tears himself, "to always be our son."  
  
And Clark thought he had exhausted his own supply of tears. "Always, dad. Mom. Always. I'll never be anything less than what you've given me. Or anything more."  
  
His room was the same as he had left it, except cleaner, with all his "junk" carefully arranged and clothes neatly put away. He welcomed the time and space alone to shower and change. Too many thoughts, too much still unresolved, but the simple re-establishing of a long-familiar routine was as healing as any of Cyrus' power. For now, Clark was just going to let it try to sort itself out around him, and not to try to analyze or plan or hope too much.  
  
Dinner was being put on the table when he came down. Clark gulped. What were they supposed to talk about over the family ritual? School? (Clark had actually been to school, of a sorts, over the past months, a hard and demanding one, but he didn't think his parents were ready to hear about that, if they ever would be.) What had been going on with his friends? (What had gone so wrong with Lana and Chloe?) How was the farm doing? Jonathan had been dependent on Clark to make ends meet. He couldn't afford hired help.  
  
The phone rang just as they were sitting down to eat. Martha glanced at the caller ID and rolled her eyes. "Pete. I knew it. His timing is impeccable."  
  
Clark managed a small chuckle at that. Pete had been known to call right at dinnertime ever since they first met. "I'll get back to him."  
  
"Honey, Pete's been calling here every single day since.... I think you should go ahead and talk to him. He's, well, done a lot for us. For you. If it's important enough that he needs to call you again, after seeing you just a few hours ago...."  
  
Well, that was a point. Maybe there was another meteor mutant on the loose. Clark sighed and went to the phone. A reprieve, in a way, but it was just putting off the inevitable. "What's up, Pete?" Actually, punching out a meteor mutant right now would be a relief.  
  
The burst of noise from the other end of the phone made him flinch and yank it away from his ear. The newly-acquired oversensitive hearing picked the worst damn times to kick in. "We just wanted to see how it was going, bro'!"  
  
Good lord, Pete's entire family (plus Cyrus) was singing "Welcome back!" on the other end of their speaker-phone. It hadn't been any unusual hearing ability on his part after all. Weather central was probably reporting an earthquake with the epicenter at the Ross house. "Um, actually, we were just about to have dinner."  
  
"GREAT! Save us some leftovers! Mom's put dad on a diet, and there isn't any food left worth eating in the whole house. We'll be over in half an hour or so!"  
  
"Oh, um...." Clark was cut off by the final verse of "Welcome back!" from the entire household, and when his hearing did flicker to hypersensitivity, he dropped the phone with a gasp. His parents both immediately abandoned dinner and ran to his side in concern just short of panic. (Justifiable panic, he thought dizzily, distantly, given the terrifying voice in his head, and his actions over the past few months....) "What is it, son? What's wrong?"  
  
The simplest explanation, this time, was fortunately the actual truth, and only mildly alarming. "That was ... Pete's whole family. On the speaker-phone. Singing."  
  
Jonathan and Martha traded a look of absolute disbelief, and then fell into helpless laughter. Jonathan threw back his head. "Leave it to the Rosses to be the only normal people in Smallville!" Martha just held on to him, giggling, more in relief than anything else.  
  
"Uh ... Pete sort of invited himself over, too. Says his dad's on a diet, and he has intentions on our refrigerator. I hope he's not bringing his brothers too."  
  
Jonathan roared, in sheer gratitude at the release of tension, at being able to feel SOMEthing normal. "Let 'em all come! Can't be any worse than locusts in the fields, can it?" At Martha's new wave of hilarity, he grabbed both of them in a hug that a bear would have studied with interest. "Well, can it?" he demanded.  
  
"Well, Pete and Jack are still teenagers...." Martha collapsed into giggles again.  
  
"Uh, I dunno about Jack, but probably Pete will be bringing Cyrus over." His parents sobered quickly at the name, puzzled and wary again -- not letting go of him, but once more uncertain of what to say, how to react. Clark went through his litany again. I can throw a tractor. I can stand a meteorite, for a little while. I can tell my parents the truth.  
  
"You remember, the guy who thought he was from Krypton? Turns out he's an empath, a really good one. He was picking up on me, what I was feeling, the day I came down. That's why he had memories of the ship, of the meteors -- he got it from me. I was, I don't remember exactly, just coming out of some sort of suspended animation, and I don't think there were any windows, or that I saw anything, but the fall was.... Anyway, he was close enough to where I hit to feel just about everything I was feeling. I had already been in range of Earth's sun long enough to be pretty tough, but he almost died in the strike." Clark trailed off and looked away. Just another victim of the Kryptonian who fell to Earth.  
  
God. Jonathan and Martha looked at each other again. To a baby, even a controlled atmospheric entry, the gravity and fire and falling, would be terrifying. And the meteor swarm would have damaged Clark's ship -- he'd already proved that the ship's control was vulnerable to the meteorites -- enough that it was hardly making a controlled entry.  
  
"Son, how many times are we going to have to tell you that it wasn't your fault? You certainly didn't choose to bring the meteors with you. I doubt the people who sent you here did it on purpose, either. If a bunch of powerful aliens were going to invade the planet," Jonathan tried to sound offhandedly witty, though in fact this was something he had thought long and carefully about during the many years alone out in the fields, "They would hardly have brought along rocks that could kill them. And I sure don't see alien invaders sending one baby just to cause one meteor storm in one small town."  
  
"And maybe that -- memory of falling -- is why you're afraid of heights?" Martha offered gently, dragging the subject away from the lone baby, the last of his kind.  
  
"Well, that, and Greg's treehouse. Every time I got near the treehouse, I was near the kryptonite in that abandoned building next to it," Clark said wryly, allowing himself to be diverted. "I don't think I fell down and threw up and got a bloody nose every time I tried to climb the ladder to the treehouse just because it was fifteen feet above the ground."  
  
The Kents absorbed that in something like shock. They had known the old factory had been destroyed in the meteor storm. And yet they had encouraged Clark to go there and play with his friends, to "get over" a fear that a nearly-invulnerable kid should not have had.  
  
Not even wondering, for years, if there were something he had genuine reason to fear. Clark had stopped complaining about the dizziness and cramping pain and helpless gasping for breath that he couldn't seem to make himself "get over," blaming his own inadequacy, after they had ever-so-gently explained what psychosomatic symptoms were.  
  
Clark cleared his throat. "Old history," he offered, apologetically. "I should have known better myself. You couldn't be expected to tell what it...."  
  
Jonathan went and sat down, heavily. Dinner was cold. He stared at it, wondering if he could bring himself to eat it, if forcing himself to appreciate Martha's efforts was more important than berating himself for the terrible things he had done to Clark in his ignorance.  
  
All the sacrifices they had made in trying to bring up a superhuman child ... their own difficulties were nothing, compared to what they had actually put Clark through, demanding human constraints, and requiring human responses, of a child who could never be that.  
  
"Dad...?" Clark's voice was unsteady. Jonathan was getting a whole new perspective on why Clark had run away. And Clark was still trying to blame himself.  
  
"I'm sorry, son," he said, low. "We've been -- we did try, the best way we knew how. We didn't -- we just -- there aren't any guide books for things like this. All the times we hurt you -- all the things we did wrong -- I'm sorry. We never ... we never meant to hurt you."  
  
Jonathan buried his face in his hands, and Martha moved to stand behind him, her hands on his shoulders, her own head bowed. "We love you. We were scared for you. We wanted ... everything right for you. I hope you can believe that. We just ... didn't know."  
  
Clark moved, that eye-blink speed they would never get used to -- no one would, not even his superhuman friends decades down the line (except for the ones who could do it themselves) -- and had both of them in his arms again. "Don't you dare," he said fiercely. "Don't you dare even think I don't understand that. I owe you everything I could ever have, ever be. Without you.... What if I had been raised by, oh, for starters, Lionel Luthor? And there are worse than him. Way worse. I've met some."  
  
In fact, the Baron had far more scruples than Lionel, but he was also far more dangerous. Clark shuddered to himself to think of being raised, not just as a weapon, but as someone with no particular concern for individual members of the human race at all.  
  
His parents misinterpreted his shudder. Which was fine with him. He wanted his adopted home back. He wanted the support of the people who had raised him. His sanity depended on it, on this very simple and basic contact with the world and people around him. Because without it, he didn't, couldn't, belong to this world at all. He would rather die.  
  
Jonathan pulled himself together. "You have a point there, son." He stood, facing the boy, still astonished on a subliminal level at how tall Clark had grown. No longer a boy. But always his son. Not that damn ship's, not some dead planet's. His.  
  
"You'll always be our son. And whatever we've screwed up, we'll work out. Together. Can you trust us enough to try that? And not to think you have to lie to us again?"  
  
Not to have to lie. Clark closed his eyes, resting his head on his mother's hair, his hand on his father's arm. Not to ever have to lie to the people he loved again. Not to Chloe, not to Pete, maybe not to Lana. Maybe not even to Lex, someday, although that was another meeting he was not looking forward to. But most of all, not to the people against whom he had always measured his moral compass, even when the red rock was poisoning his mind.  
  
Not to have to lie to the people who had saved him. Not to be living a lie, all alone.  
  
"That's," his voice came out in a choked whisper, and he steadied it, to keep from worrying them, to keep them from thinking he was lying again. Forcing his emotions under control was not a lie. It was part of growing up. "That's everything I could ask for."  
  
Martha wiped her eyes. "It's -- we know you have your own life now. We don't expect ... everything. But when you have a problem, when you need help, just, please, remember one thing. Promise me."  
  
That I'd be dead by now if it weren't for you? Or worse? Don't remind me. "I promise." Without even knowing what you demand, mom, I promise. I have to. To live.  
  
"Remember," and Martha's eyes suddenly glinted with mischief rather than tears, "that we're older than you, and there's very little -- well, except for the strength and speed and vision and invulnerability part -- that you can do that we haven't already done, and done worse. Or better. Depends on your definition."  
  
Well, those exceptions kind of define the rule, don't they? "You mean," Clark tried to keep his tone light, though he really wanted nothing more than to sit down and cry and hopefully pass out again, "You once ran away?"  
  
"Once? Hon, between your father and I, we've done more running away than there are milk cartons to put pictures on." She hugged Jonathan, who actually chuckled, telling Clark more than he really needed to know about the truthfulness of that. "But we always came back." She included Clark in the hug. "And so did you. That's all that counts."  
  
Jonathan slapped Clark on the back, hard enough for Clark to feel it, a little. "Son, I doubt you get all your stubbornness from your biological side."  
  
Clark managed a smile. "I think I already knew that."  
  
The sound of Pete's car horn saved him going into any morbid introspection. "Oh, no," he groaned. "I thought he said half an hour. He's been taking driving lessons from Lex."  
  
"Well, yes, actually," Martha said, bemused. "Pete and Lex have actually kind of hit it off since Lex was rescued. It started out as a shouting match as soon as Lex was released from the hospital -- you were one of the subjects, but not the only one -- turned into family threats -- I think the only reason his brothers kept Pete from decking Lex was the threat of jail -- and trading horror stories, and.... Well, Pete shaking hands with Lex was on the front page of the Ledger. Since then, they've spent a lot of time working together on, mm...."  
  
"Finding me?"  
  
"Protecting you." Martha's eyes hooded. "Pete had to ... tell him some things."  
  
Oh, no. And his dad's eyes were distant and blank, as if in accusation. Clark could read the disappointment there as if he were a telepath himself. It's your fault for telling Pete in the first place. It's your fault for letting him see you put on the ring. It's your fault for putting on the ring at all. Your fault. No kidding, dad. "Um, what did he tell him, do you know?"  
  
"Turns out," Jonathan said flatly, "that Lex already knew the meteorites make you sick. And that Lionel knew. The red rock's effects was news to him, but not by much, and nothing any more dangerous to you than they already had. So you can't blame Pete."  
  
No, just blame me. Clark bit the inside of his lip, wondering if he could cut his own skin that way. "Lex is my friend. And if he already knew, he hasn't used it to hurt me."  
  
"Lionel isn't. And he may just be waiting for the right time."  
  
"Clark...." Martha's face was a study in misery, and both Clark and Jonathan flinched from it. "After all the times we've told you to be careful.... I'm the one who failed you there. When you came to rescue me in Lionel's office -- with that vault of the meteorite bars...."  
  
Clark swallowed a gag at the memory. Even being tied up for hours with Lana's necklace tearing him apart hadn't hurt as badly as those things. "What about it, mom?"  
  
Martha squared her jaw. "Can you think of anything more stupid than me calling out your name in front of everyone, when you came in? Even if Lionel was really even still blind at that point, which I'm not sure about. But there's no way he couldn't have heard everything. When you fell, and were so sick. When I went to you instead of making sure that kidnapper wasn't still a threat." Martha looked away. "I couldn't have told Lionel more clearly that what he had in the vault was dangerous to you if I had painted a sign on the door. It's my fault."  
  
"You were just trying to protect our son," Jonathan said gently.  
  
"Yes. And I panicked. And now the Luthors know how to hurt Clark."  
  
Clark had to force his hands to stay feather-light on his parents. He wanted to hate himself, just for being what he was. He couldn't bring himself to hate his mom and dad. "If," he said carefully, "If I had been a normal person, then they could have hurt me -- us -- any way they wanted, and not cared. It's not your fault that I'm -- something they want to exploit."  
  
Jonathan pulled away and stared at him. "If you ever say that again," he replied evenly, "I will hit you, son. And I still have a pretty good right cross. I will find out exactly which is harder, my fist or your jaw, if that's what it takes to get your attention."  
  
Clark tried hard to make a smile. "Funny. Cyrus said pretty much the same thing."  
  
By now Pete was beating on the door, crying claims of starvation and threatening to expire in a hideous sack of skin and bones. Jonathan chuckled a little and went to let him in. "May as well feed Pete the dinner, hon. I'm sorry, but I've kind of lost my appetite."  
  
"I could warm it up," Clark offered halfheartedly. Heat vision seemed kind of a violation of what he was trying to do, the normalcy he was trying to achieve right now.  
  
"We have a microwave, Clark." And that put an end to that.  
  
Pete gave them all an effusive hug. "Wow, you can't imagine what it was like at our house tonight. Here I bring home company," he gestured at Cyrus, behind him, "And mom tried to feed us celery soup. CELERY SOUP! Jan threw it out the door. There was a fight like you, uh," well, the Kents would have had their own share of fights, "Like would have scared away Klingons. You know Cyrus, right?" Pete waved a hand in introduction. " I told him, if we want some decent food, we have to go hit on Clark to get the sympathy vote."  
  
"Mrs. Kent." Cyrus' smile was as open and warm as Clark's had been, once. It twisted her heart. He took her offered hand between his and held it gently, firmly. Clark gulped. His mother had no idea what that offer of contact meant, or what it cost the empath.  
  
"Cyrus. It's ... good to see you again. You're looking ... a lot better."  
  
Cyrus threw back his head and laughed in honest appreciation, though he didn't let go of Martha's hand, and Clark easily caught the loss of blood from his skin from what looked an awful lot like pain. "A lot better than being in catatonic shock? Yeah, I'd imagine so. I came through the other side, Mrs. Kent. You can too. Hang onto that idea, will you? For me?"  
  
Martha managed a smile back at him. "Yes. I'll keep that in mind."  
  
Cyrus turned to Jonathan, and offered a man-to-man handshake. Jonathan returned it with the trademark Kent smile. He was not, however, entirely unobservant. "You okay, son? You kind of went pale. Can we get you something?"  
  
"I'm fine." Cyrus released Jonathan's hand and wiped sweat from his forehead. Clark cringed at the unintentional mimicry of the excuse he'd always made when caught too close to the green rocks. Unintentional? "I wouldn't object to something cold, though."  
  
"Oh, I think we can manage that. Any preferences?"  
  
"Juice, if you have it. I've pretty much gone vegetarian since I...." He trailed off, and ran a hand through his hair. Most of what he'd been through, he wasn't at liberty to reveal.  
  
"Since you what, son?" Jonathan said gently, as Martha came back with a glass of juice for both boys. "We understand if you don't want to talk about it, but if you do...."  
  
"I smell food!" Pete declared, as the microwave dinged.  
  
"Dig in, Pete. And you can take the casserole back for your brothers, if they want. Don't want my volunteer farm help starving to death. Celery soup! Martha, don't you ever."  
  
Clark winced. So the Ross family had been filling in for him on the farm. He wondered how much Pete had told his brothers.  
  
"Then I couldn't ask for better confidantes, could I?" Cyrus grinned, redirecting the conversation as he found a seat and saluted the Kent family with his glass. "I wonder how it would have been if I'd had parents as understanding as you. Who didn't call me crazy and have me locked up when I did things kids weren't supposed to be able to do. How old was Clark when you first found out about his strength and invulnerability? I hope he could at least understand Anglic by then. Good thing the x-ray and heat vision didn't kick in until later."  
  
Jonathan and Martha both went absolutely still. "What ... are you...."  
  
"Oh, for --" Cyrus glared, actually glared, at Clark. "You didn't tell them?"  
  
"Um." Clark tried to make himself small. "Things have been ... kind of crazy. We haven't even really managed to, you know, talk, ourselves. There's a lot we just haven't, well, gotten around to." Clark's attention dithered between Pete and Cyrus, looking for the most effective distraction. He finally settled for a tentative seat beside Cyrus while Pete ate.  
  
"Crap." Cyrus stood up. "I'm sorry. I should leave." Then he flopped back down on the couch. "No, I shouldn't." He slapped Clark across the head, hard, and took a primordial satisfaction in the Kent parents' gasp of concern for HIM. "Ow. You DOOFUS. What have you been using to try to communicate, coloring books? I mean, granted Anglic doesn't have the precision of Kryptonian, but have you tried, maybe, finishing a sentence?"  
  
"I told them I was sorry." Clark's voice couldn't even be called a whisper.  
  
"Sorry?" Cyrus looked as if he were going to bounce to his feet again, but settled for sitting up straight and narrowing his eyes, ignoring the gaping parents. "What, precisely, for? Being a runaway? Like none of you guys have seen any after-school specials?"  
  
"When ... when I blew up ... the ship...." Clark pulled as far away from the empath as he could get without having to make the effort to stand. "The explosion ... they were caught in it. The wreck -- mom -- lost her baby." The wash of never-to-be-atoned-for sorrow made Cyrus clench his fists on the couch. "Their baby. Their -- human -- baby."  
  
"Oh." Cyrus' face cleared suddenly, as if a painkiller had just kicked in. "About that. This isn't the best time. And Kal, this is going to hurt. I wish I could spare you. But you need to know. Mrs. Kent -- Martha -- that baby wasn't yours. It wasn't human. It would have killed you trying to bear it. Clark saved your life when he blew up that damn ship."  
  
Jonathan was looming over him, suddenly, his fingers twitching as if wishing for a shotgun trigger to pull. "What the hell did you just say?"  
  
Cyrus looked up at him with the calm that comes only from superior power, the power of being able to kill with a touch, and Jonathan recognized it, if only subconsciously, from having seen it in Clark. "The ship impregnated your wife. More precisely, made her a host for an experiment. The child was meant to be Clark's -- Kal-El's -- mate. The artificers of Krypton, and his biological father was the leader of the bunch, didn't give a damn whether your people lived or died. Their only interest was in preserving the heritage of their planet and the lineage of their race. And they were a cold-blooded bunch of bastards, believe me."  
  
Jonathan collapsed back into his seat. Martha sat as if frozen solid. "What in the HELL are you talking about? Clark ... our baby ... you're not making sense."  
  
Cyrus made a rude gesture. "Mr. Kent, you may be a cow-hand, but you're not a damn idiot. Kal-El? Krypton? Spaceship? Green rocks? Hello? Do I look like Lex Luthor in his chem lab with some kind of new meteorite-laced LSD? The boy you raised -- " he slapped Clark across the head again on general principals, eliciting an indignant but slightly tension-relieving "hmmph!" -- "Was, is, the last survivor of a planet that had space-travel since before homo sapiens drew pictures on cave walls. You think that planet's most famous scientist, who by the way fortunately didn't pass on the family tendency to create planet-cracking bombs to his brat here -- " Cyrus aimed another head shot, and Clark dodged, fast.  
  
Cyrus chuckled, but his demeanor changed, and he leaned forward, deadly serious.  
  
"You think that damned spaceship computer was protecting YOU? It was out to, I guess the closest Earth parallel is, breed a master race. And you, beautiful and loving and unsuspecting Mrs. Kent, were only its first and most convenient experiment in creating a proper mate for the last male survivor of the species. And when you died from the strain, it would have gained enough information to try again. It had millions of others to choose from, and play around with, and experiment with genetics on. Starting, I would guess, with his other unsuspecting and nearby and convenient female friends, like Lana and Chloe."  
  
Cyrus took a deep breath and sipped at his juice, working to keep his voice cool and controlled while telling a real-life horror story. "The local kryptonite mutations just made it a little easier for the computer's super-bugs, but it was programmed to produce a mate for Kal-El, and keep Krypton's culture going, if it had to kill everything on this planet trying."  
  
The dead silence was broken only by the sound of the suddenly-gone Clark cracking the toilet seat down the hall between his fingers as he held onto it, vomiting.  
  
Jonathan's eyes were the color of glaciers. Cyrus shivered. There was only one person on the planet that he was truly and deeply afraid of, and she had eyes like that. "What, exactly," he said in a tone so low and dangerous that the shotgun would have been a relief, "Makes you think something like that?"  
  
Cyrus straightened his backbone. He had not gone through hell and back to be cowed by even Jonathan Kent. "I accessed the spaceship's download myself," he said evenly. "So did most of my friends with mental talents. We talked about it. Compared notes. A lot."  
  
Cyrus leaned back, considering going into lecture mode. "That stupid linguist went crazy because he was already a nutcase, not to mention an arrogant jerk, and didn't have a clue how to process direct mental input. Clark couldn't have gotten the whole thing because it was such a shock to his system, even as tough as he is. He's not even remotely psychic, and he doesn't have any mental defenses. Plus it was aimed straight at him, on the genetic level. The rest of us didn't get just an ancestor's voice screaming in our minds to take over the world and visions of a planet blowing all to hell. We managed to read everything behind it."  
  
"Mental," Martha said dazedly, coming back from far away, "talents?"  
  
"Damn that kid of yours for not knowing when NOT to keep a secret." Pete snorted agreement at Clark's nearly psychotic habit of hiding even things that could have helped him. Cyrus rose and moved to kneel in front of Martha, taking her hand between his again. "Mrs. Kent. Martha. Look at me." When she did, he took a deep breath and summoned everything he had, pouring it over her like light and air. "I have the power to heal," he said softly. "But only if you let me. And I have the power to feel what you do. But only if you let me."  
  
Both statements were a lie, but only technically. An empath couldn't heal without feeling pain, and a healer couldn't share pain he couldn't help but feel without needing to heal.  
  
"You -- you're a meteor mutant? Something like that?"  
  
Cyrus forced a chuckle. "The meteorites enhanced my natural abilities, yes. But I was born an empath healer. It's not as uncommon as you might think. Most people who have it hide it. Touching people when you feel everything they do isn't always a lot of fun, and Clark doesn't go around telling the world about the kryptonite, does he? I'm, well, mentally what he is physically. I'm awfully strong, way more than most. But almost as easy to hurt. That's why it took me so long to come back." He squeezed her hand, and let go, reluctantly.   
  
Underneath the pain, Martha tasted of sunlight and growing things and determination. Protection. He could learn to like the feel of that.  
  
Jonathan's hand dropped onto his shoulder, and Cyrus jumped. God, hadn't the man understood a word he'd just said about feeling everything when you touched? Then his head came up in wonder. There was nothing in the contact except pure solid support, stability, the feel of the land and the wind and the sky. Cyrus blinked. Either Jonathan Kent had more mental control than any non-psi in the history of the planet, or he was an empath himself.  
  
Oh. Wow. Well, that would explain a lot about their ability to deal with Clark.  
  
"Clark said he thought you two were fellow aliens," Jonathan said softly, ruefully.  
  
"Well, yeah. In a way. Once I found out about him -- learned what to do when I touched -- I remembered being caught in the meteor fall. And picking up on Clark. Kal. He was so scared, poor kid. So was I. We connected so hard when his ship crashed that I would have run over and held onto him if I could have moved at all. I had nightmares about that whole thing for decades. I was burned half to death and had broken bones everywhere."  
  
"That's what Chloe says, too," Pete added through a mouthful of food. "Cyrus' real name is William, and his parents were, like, you know," an evasive gesture, "in the meteor storm." And at least he didn't go around whining about it like Lana.  
  
"That's probably when the healing talent kicked in." Cyrus shook his head. "The people who found me were afraid of being accused of child abuse from how bad I was hurt, and then terrified of what they'd seen when I was fine a week later. It didn't occur to you to wonder why Clark wasn't burned or even bruised in the middle of a meteor strike?"  
  
"I don't question miracles," Martha said. She stood up. "May I...?"  
  
Cyrus braced himself. "I would be honored."  
  
Martha hugged him, hard and quickly, and released him. The emotions pouring through her made him dizzy. She didn't have anywhere near Jonathan's control.  
  
But she understood. And to Cyrus, she felt like sunlight and life. And love.  
  
"Would you like some dinner?" And that, Cyrus though with amusement, was all Smallville. Your world came down around you, and you wiped your eyes and set the table for dinner. "I'd love to, Mrs. Kent. But like I said, I have a problem eating animals. It's part of the whole empathic thing."  
  
"I didn't leave him much, anyway," Pete interjected gleefully.  
  
"I made an apple cobbler. It was Clark's," her voice faltered, "Favorite. Back, you know, when."  
  
Cyrus took her hand. "Now that's an offer I can't refuse. I could eat my own weight in apple cobbler. Especially yours." He looked down the hall, and schooled his face to calm impassivity. "I had better go see about Clark. That was a ton of rocks to drop on him."  
  
"No." Jonathan's voice was as firm and commanding as any Cyrus had ever heard, and he'd heard people who would make Lionel Luthor quake in his socks. "Clark is my son. I hurt him. It's my responsibility." His pain is my fault, he did not say aloud, but for Cyrus, he may as well have written it on the wall in permanent marker. "Let me go talk to him. You," he tapped Cyrus lightly, teasingly, "Go help Martha find the ice cream to go with the cobbler."  
  
Cyrus shivered at the contact. There was NOTHING THERE. Except land and wind and sky. Jonathan Kent, the rough gruff farmhand who took a shotgun to bankers and yelled at his adopted son and his friends for doing stupid things and was well-known for both temper and tenderness, had a psi-level control that no normal person would ever be able to manage.   
  
Only an empath, or a telepath, could block emotions like that. Cyrus caught his hand automatically, then let him go immediately, embarrassed at the violation of privacy.  
  
Jonathan Kent had a trace, long buried, but inborn, of the full spectrum of psi talent. He could feel it. Holy hells. Not to a hundredth of Cyrus' power, but still. Holy hells.  
  
"Mr. Kent," Cyrus said carefully, "Before you go, um, talk to Clark, do you, well, know? About the touching thing? The...?" He tapped his head. Just in case Martha didn't know, though that was unlikely, after half a lifetime together.  
  
In the look that Jonathan turned on him, he saw the eyes change color. Human eyes do not change color, regardless of what novels say. Jonathan Kent wasn't a normal human.  
  
"Yeah," the grizzled, graying farmhand said. "I've always known." He took his wife's hand, and love flowed through the room like honey when their eyes met. "We both have. That's how I was sure that this beautiful woman was the one I was meant to be with."  
  
"You ... how...."  
  
"Cows don't have many emotions. And corn doesn't have any at all." Jonathan extended his other hand to the boy again, a deliberate offer. Cyrus took it, opening himself completely this time, dizzy and ecstatic at the feeling. A fully-under-control, complete-spectrum psi, that so-very-rare talent, and he was Clark's, Kal-El's, adoptive father? Oh, he was going to hit Kal SO many times for not even questioning how he could have grown up even more-or-less human without understanding how extraordinary his parents were.  
  
And for not having such parents himself. Damn. He'd better not touch Kal until he got his own jealousy under control.  
  
"I can .. teach you," Cyrus breathed, through the sun / wind / rain / growing things that was all Jonathan let him feel.  
  
"Thanks, son. But I don't need it any more." Of course not. Jonathan had been dealing with the unconscious power to feel everything, to hurt and be hurt, since before Cyrus had been born. Had he deliberately let himself become deadened? Hardly surprising.   
  
Cyrus gulped at another memory dredged from the contact. Touching Lionel Luthor. Blanking hells, DEALING with Lionel Luthor. Forcing himself to stay in contact with the bitter hate-filled old man. Just to protect Clark. Jonathan could have slammed the vicious old manipulator's own emotions back on him, returned pain for pain. If he hadn't barricaded himself so completely. It must have been a terrible temptation. "All I need is my boy back."  
  
"He's your son, sir." Cyrus stepped back and made a formal bow. "But when stuff goes so wrong ... if you need a hand...."  
  
Jonathan faced him, and the unyielding gaze was more powerful and dangerous than Clark's heat vision. Cyrus blocked the contact, hard, against the temptation to follow and become lost in it. "You're a good boy, son. Thanks for all you've done for Clark. More than we could have done, as sad a thing as that is to say. But there are some things...."  
  
"That only parents can do." Cyrus nodded. "Believe me, sir, I understand."  
  
Pete, who was no kind of psi talent at all, picked up on the discomfort level in the room. "Um, wow, look at the time. I got some things I promised to get. Thanks for the eats, Mr. Kent, Mrs. Kent. Come on, Bill, we better get going."  
  
"Absolutely not," Martha said in her take-charge voice. "Cyrus -- Bill -- hasn't gotten his cobbler yet. Run your errands, Pete, and I'll have some more things ready for your brothers when you come to pick him up."  
  
"Mrs. Kent, you are one awesome lady. My mom says so every day." Pete gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, a nod to Jonathan, and headed out the door. Singing.  
  
Cyrus rolled his eyes. "Remind me NEVER to encourage the Ross family to sing."  
  
Clark came back from the bathroom with his father after a long and quiet session, as pale as if he'd been tied to a green meteorite, but he managed to eat two bites of the cobbler. Cyrus pretty much finished off the rest. (He had offered his hand to Clark in an attempt to try to help, but all three Kents shook their heads at him. Dammit, they weren't going to make this easy. Well, what did you expect of Kents?)  
  
Martha sent Clark to bed so firmly that Cyrus thought about checking her for traces of psi talent, too. Even the most powerful psis he knew couldn't COMMAND like that. Or maybe that was totally a mom thing. Jonathan, predictably, offered him a bed for the night. Cyrus didn't even think about telling him how much the idea of staying under this roof for another hour made him ill from the tension, and hoped his highly trained and powerful control was good enough to keep Jonathan from picking it up when they shook hands good-night.  
  
"Actually, sir, I promised Pete to go embarrass all his brothers by hinting at all their secrets about striking out with the girls. Plus he has all my luggage. Though if Judge Ross finds out what I can do, there will be a not-fun time in the criminal justice system. I personally would rather not be stuck to a chair for ten hours a day listening to legal arguments about which case takes precedent over what and who's telling just how much of the truth."  
  
Jonathan chuckled. "I can well imagine. Give me mucking out a stall over a court room any day. Can I offer you a ride, then?"  
  
"Oh, thanks, but no. I need some time alone, you know? Just to walk, and think, and let stuff sort itself out."  
  
"I understand." Duh. Of course he did. Something damn few people could say with such honesty. "Come over any time, Cyrus. William. And welcome back."  
  
In fact, Cyrus did not go to Pete's house, but met him halfway, flagging him down on the road. Pete was all but bouncing in his seat. "I got everything! Including a camera. You think we should wait a few hours to sneak in?"  
  
"Maybe one or two. Clark's gone to bed, but his mom and dad will be up for awhile, I bet. Let's go grab some caffeine and look over the stuff. It's gonna be a long night."  
  
Two hours later, Cyrus and Pete were working hard to sneak several armloads of materials up into Clark's loft. "You sure Clark won't wake up and catch us at this?" Pete whispered. "His hearing is, you know, pretty good."  
  
"Better than you or I can imagine, though he doesn't have it under control yet," Cyrus answered in a normal voice, quiet only in deference to the after-midnight hour. "But don't worry. He's dead to the world from emotional exhaustion. And if necessary, I can keep him that way."  
  
"Oh, damnit, man. That's not a power I even want to think about."  
  
"Being a healer is dangerous, partner Pete. You should read Elfquest sometime. Winnowill would run screaming from what I can do. I've never actually killed anybody, but I could, with a touch, and by accident. Though come to think of it, so could Clark. Or you."  
  
"Me?" Only Pete's deepening voice kept him from squeaking. "No way."  
  
"You're stronger than I am. You're stronger than anyone in this town, except your brother Stan. And maybe Jonathan Kent."  
  
"And Clark, duh."  
  
"Let's not go there. You wouldn't even have to hit him to kill him. It must be hell, to know that one second you can be the strongest thing on the planet, and the next you can barely move." Cyrus paused in their assembly work, looking away, unhappy. "Chloe is dangerous, too. In a fair fight, I'd bet on you over her, but she doesn't play by Queensbury rules."  
  
"No kidding. What are we gonna do about her and Lionel?"  
  
"Help her. Support her. Discreetly. She catches us backing her, she'll kill us too."  
  
"Ain't that the truth. Hey, you missed a connection there."  
  
"Where? Oh. Thanks. I kind of neglected my mechanical skills for the past year. You're gonna practically have to teach me how to change the oil in my car all over again."  
  
"Yeah, I been meaning to ask. What HAVE you been up to for the past year?"  
  
"Long story, and not a pleasant one. Bottom line, I met another empath, who taught me to keep the mad down to a dull roar. And got some serious science and psychology lessons. Some of them at the receiving end of a shouting-at. Trust me, Pete, college is not going to be all keg parties. There were days when I was too tired to cry."  
  
"Freshman year is harder than anything short of live combat," said Pete, in a tone that couldn't be mistaken for anything except a sarcastic quote.  
  
"True, if I know anything to go by. Where'd you learn that?"  
  
"Mrs. Harris, the guidance counselor. I guess she'd know. She doesn't talk about it, but she was in Iraq."  
  
"Ouch. Remind me not to shake her hand."  
  
"Yeah." The boys busied themselves with their mechanism for another minute in silence. "That should do it," Pete proclaimed.  
  
"You sure? Should we test it?"  
  
"And waste a dart? Oh, why not. You keep Clark asleep," Pete's tone was deliberately casual at that, but he wasn't fooling the empath, "and I'll go buy some more."  
  
"At one in the morning?"  
  
"Mrs. Fordman doesn't sleep much these days. If I tell her what it's for, she'll wake up half of Metropolis ordering a store full. And probably ask to watch."  
  
"Hah!" Cyrus made a mental note to go see Mrs. Fordman. "No, she can't watch. Clark would see her. Heat-sensitive vision works both ways."  
  
"She can be invited to come see Mrs. Kent for breakfast."  
  
"Pete, you are an evil genius."  
  
The automatic-fire rig to shoot suction-darts, tracking Clark's body heat, had taken them barely three hours to install in Clark's loft. Cyrus had not, actually, been skimping on his mechanics lessons, and Pete was a natural inventor. The only thing they hadn't been able to figure out yet was how to watch the reaction when Clark got whapped by some two hundred, maybe another thousand if Pete got the supply in before dawn, stick-on darts.  
  
"One second delay on the trigger, or none at all?"  
  
"Clark's pretty fast. And don't forget the x-ray vision. He'll find it."  
  
"No delay then. Constant fire.... How fast is that digital camera?"  
  
"State of the art. LexCorp."  
  
"That's a ten-thousand-dollar piece of equipment!"  
  
"It was free."  
  
"You TOLD him?"  
  
"Well, sort of. He wants it back, though. It has a recorder built in."  
  
"Oh, hell. If he sees..."  
  
"My sentiments exactly. But look at it this way -- once we explain it to Clark, we can do it ALL OVER AGAIN, and make him relive it at normal speed for the camera."  
  
"BWAHAHAHAHA!" 


	2. Add One Lex and Stir

Clark slept like an inanimate object for six hours, but when the dreams started, he twisted and moaned until he finally bolted awake, sweating and gasping. The poisoned nightmares of the red kryptonite days were still too close. He wondered if they would ever fade. If they didn't, he wondered if they would end up driving him back into insanity.  
  
There was no point in trying to get back to sleep. He thought about going his old place in the loft and waiting for the sunrise, but that was hours away, and it would give him too much time to brood. Maybe if he just kept himself occupied.... He did what chores he could at high speed -- the chickens didn't seem to care, but the cows objected to being milked at that pace, so he left that last job for Jonathan -- and set off for Lex's castle before dawn.   
  
Truth be told, he didn't know if he had managed to work up the courage to face Lex yet. Maybe if he just stood outside and watched for awhile....  
  
Practice had honed his high-frequency vision to the point where it was barely a thought to spread his senses to a wider spectrum. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with that, but there was no giving it back short of blinding himself. He sighed, and let his eyes look into, through, the castle walls, randomly, not yet deliberately searching.  
  
And, of course, the first thing he saw was Lex, sitting in his library, a half-empty glass beside him, staring darkly into a cold fireplace.  
  
Drinking? At four in the morning? Clark took in Lex's appearance more carefully. A little rumpled, especially for Lex. Maybe he hadn't even gone to bed yet.  
  
Lex looked up, and Clark's eyes followed his automatically. Monitor screens. Oh, no. Of course Lex would have perimeter security sensors up, especially with all he'd been through lately. Clark cursed himself for being a stupid kid. All the hard lessons he'd been through himself in the past few months, and it hadn't even occurred to him to check.  
  
Lex reached for something beside the glass, and held up a small control panel. "Come on in, Clark." The sound was broadcast from a speaker by the front door.  
  
Clark would rather have walked toward a meteor rock, but he made himself move forward. Lex turned to look directly at the door, as if he could see Clark as well as Clark could see him. The door opened itself at a touch from Lex on the little panel.  
  
"I'm assuming you know where I am," Lex's voice said said from the speaker. "If you care to join me. If not," a shrug, and Lex took a drink, "You know where the pool is."  
  
The inference being that Clark only came over to take advantage of Lex's money and toys, not to be with Lex himself. Clark froze, unable to breathe, shaking. He closed his eyes against Lex's stare, not even bothering to try to fight a sob. He turned to leave. There was no way he could face Lex now, not in this mood, not if that was how Lex felt about him now.  
  
Maybe not ever. He wondered for a second if the camera would catch him at speed.  
  
"Clark." The tone changed -- not much, but enough for him to look back. Lex was looking at the security screens again. Watching him. Lex would never apologize, could never relax. But maybe he was regretting the stab, and would allow Clark to make the first move.  
  
Clark swallowed. He was willing to put in the effort. He would either have to make his apologies, and hope to be accepted by his friends again, or have nothing left of his humanity, nothing left of himself except the cold unforgiving voice of Jor-El in his mind.  
  
"I'm -- I just didn't mean to disturb you this early." Another half-truth, another evasion. Sometimes it did seem like that shell of lies was all there was left of him.  
  
Lex snorted, swirling his glass. Clark wondered if Lex were snorting at himself for sitting alone and drinking in the hour before dawn, or at Clark for lying to him. "You're not exactly interrupting. But you would already know that, wouldn't you? If you didn't mean to disturb me, then why are you here? Don't tell me you've taken up stalking, Clark."  
  
Already know that? Clark shivered. Why would Lex say that? How much did he know? "I just ... I wasn't thinking. I just had to get away. I ended up here."  
  
Lex sighed. "Come inside, Clark. The security cameras were not designed for holding a conversation through. And whatever you have to say, it probably isn't something you want recorded and gossiped over in the guardhouse."  
  
Clark gulped. He had known about the security system on the front door, and although the perimeter sensors were an upgrade he hadn't known about, anyone with half a brain should have known that Lex wasn't the only one monitoring them. So much for having half a brain. "Thanks ... Lex." He closed his eyes, bracing himself, and walked cautiously into the foyer and down the halls he had been through so many times, so easily, before.  
  
Lex inclined his head slightly to look at Clark as he forced himself reluctantly into the room. It was cold, a cold that went deeper than temperature. It was cold in the way that Lionel was cold in a business meeting. Cold as if no human being had ever been there.  
  
"So, to what do I owe this honor? I didn't think you would have time to come around, what with your triumphant homecoming." Lex took a drink, but his eyes never left Clark's face.  
  
Clark nearly retreated from the weight of the stone mask in those eyes. "It was your homecoming that was triumphant. Mine is more like ... one long apology."  
  
"You know even less than you think, if you believe that." Lex's voice did nothing to take the insult from the words. "When I find out exactly who tried to kill me, and why, and deal with them, then it will be a triumph." He gestured with his free hand, the sharp angry motion slowed by alcohol and exhaustion. "In the meantime, you're still the town's golden boy, and I'm still the embodiment of all the wrongs ever done by Luthors."  
  
Bitterness rose in Clark. "You didn't do anything wrong. I did. Maybe my friends and family have forgiven me, but they'll never completely trust me again. But you'd already know all about that, right?"  
  
"Trust?" Lex would have laughed if he weren't so tired. "Is that what this is about, Clark? You wanted to see just how far we could still trust each other?" He leaned back, looking around for a bottle to refill his glass. "You were moving pretty fast when you crossed the perimeter sensors. A little over two hundred kph, by my calculations. I don't know whether to call the Olympics committee or Cadmus Labs."  
  
Oh, no.... Well, he already knew about the meteorites, so the whole purpose of keeping his secret was kind of pointless now. "What," he said carefully, and Lex's sudden glare told him that he had better not finish that with "are you talking about?" Lex was not, quite, as angry as Chloe, but that might just be because of the late hour and the booze, and he had far more practice at rage. "What do you -- want to -- know?"  
  
For answer, Lex leaned over to a drawer and lifted out a dull gray box that was obviously heavy -- Lex had to put down his drink and use both hands, grunting with the effort. Clark would have guessed what it was even without the shift in his vision.  
  
Lex picked up his drink again. "Do you want to open that?" Taunting.  
  
Clark took a deep breath. If that was the way he wanted to play it.... "No."  
  
"Why not?" Lex had to be pretty drunk to show such petty spitefulness.  
  
It made Clark angry. "Games, Lex? Is that all that's left between us?" He moved toward the box at speed, a blur, before he could change his mind, and yanked the lid open.  
  
Oh, hells, the refined stuff. Clark went to his knees even as he shoved the lid back closed. Fact was, he admitted through the blinding dizziness and pain, he might not have managed even that if Lex hadn't slapped his own hand down on the lid with a roar.  
  
"Goddammit, Clark!" He was on his feet before Clark could see again, leaning over him and radiating pure fury. "I wanted you to talk to me, not torture yourself!"  
  
"S-sometimes," Clark managed to retort, "It f-feels like ... the s-same thing."  
  
Lex said something under his breath that would have been considered much too unsophisticated for a Luthor. He shoved the box violently back into its drawer and slammed it closed, ramming a bar lock through it for good measure, every motion the action of a man who desperately wants to hit something hard enough to break it.  
  
Clark wondered if Lex had been tempted to make him that something, and if he knew he'd be risking breaking his own hand. He suspected that the answer was yes to both.  
  
"Sit down." Lex pointed at the couch -- the place where Clark had spent so many hours comfortably studying or reading while Lex worked, just content to be in one another's company, making the occasional offhand comment. Clark tried to blame his blurred vision on the radiation's after-effects again. The trouble he had getting to his feet had to be due to residual weakness, too. Surely he wasn't about to start crying again. Not in front of Lex.  
  
Whatever Lex made of his stumbling, he just hauled Clark upright as if he were the super-strong one, and pushed him onto the couch. It was not a friendly gesture, and Lex turned away from him immediately, going to the bar while Clark fought for self-control.  
  
Then Lex was back, shoving a heavy glass of something amber into Clark's hand.  
  
Maybe that was as close to a friendly gesture as Lex was able to make any more.  
  
Lex sat back down and refilled his own glass as Clark sipped the powerful-tasting stuff. So what if it wasn't even dawn yet. It felt like he had already been through enough for a full day. "Why did you do that?" Lex demanded, so quietly it was barely above a whisper.  
  
Clark forced a faint smile. "You mean that wasn't a dare?"  
  
Lex sighed and scrubbed at his face, as if tired enough to finally consider letting go. "A challenge? Maybe it was. Or maybe ... a threat. That's how Luthors deal with their ... opponents." He leaned back, taking a drink and closing his eyes. "It's a hard habit to break."  
  
"Am I your opponent, Lex?" Softly.  
  
"Are you?" Lex looked at him directly. "You're certainly a force to be reckoned with. If you ever decided to oppose me, you could kill me outright before I could make a move. But the meteorites are not your only weakness. You're inexperienced and careless. Gullible. If you held back, if you made a mistake, you wouldn't have a chance against me."  
  
"I don't want to oppose you. And I would never even dream of killing you."  
  
Lex leaned forward. "Are you absolutely certain about that? Are you certain that I will never, not once, do something that you would oppose? Are you going to keep that lie between us too, Clark? Or are you really just that much of a fool?"  
  
"I probably really am that much of a fool." Clark downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and closed his eyes, feeling the liquid burn a little in his throat and stomach. It was an unusual sensation for him, not entirely pleasant, but somehow enticing. Like eating too much ice cream too fast. "But I still believe in you, Lex. And I believe that you would never do anything I would have to -- fight you over. Not like that."  
  
When he opened his eyes again, Lex was staring at him in a kind of fond bemusement. "Clark Kent, eternal optimist," Lex said, almost gently. "Power and innocence and charm, all wrapped up in one unnatural package. Self-effacing, and trusting, and living a lie all these years behind those smiling guileless eyes. What am I going to do with you?"   
  
Clark's eyes went involuntarily to the drawer, and Lex slammed a hand flat on the desk top with a crack like a gunshot, suddenly with no sign of tiredness or drunkenness.  
  
"Goddammit, Clark," and although he wasn't yelling this time, the cold blazing rage was even more threatening than his previous shout. "No matter what happens between us, I will NOT do that to you. Not unless you go absolutely bugout crazy and somebody really does have to kill you. Then, I promise you," he brought himself down to quiet again, though it was an obvious effort of self-restraint, as he took a drink, "It will be me."  
  
Clark looked up at him. There was nothing else to say to that. "Thank you."  
  
Lex stared at him. Without a word or change in expression, he went to the bar and brought back another bottle, filling Clark's glass before he could protest and drinking directly from it himself. Clark's mouth opened and closed once, twice, like a fish trying to figure out where the water had gone. "Lex, it's not even dawn yet," he finally said lamely.  
  
"So?" Lex's stare became amusedly challenging. "I was nearly killed. God only knows what happened to you. I was drugged, bashed up, almost drowned, burned, beaten, abandoned, starved, and if I ever see an episode of Survivor again, I will shoot the television and then myself. You, on the other hand, pulled the throwing-it-all-away routine yourself, blew up half your own house and took off on the equivalent of a cocaine and heroin highball, and had a psychotic break and either didn't remember your own name or didn't give a damn.  
  
"We should worry about having a damn brandy just because the BBC doesn't come on for another ten minutes?" Lex lifted the bottle and drank deeply. "To survivors. Prosit."  
  
Clark closed his eyes. Okay, of course it was never going to be the same between him and Lex -- between him and anyone -- ever again. But that was only to be expected. At least it seemed that he would be accepted back into Lex's private life, maybe even as a friend, not just as someone he had once known. He lifted his glass, and drained it. "Salud."  
  
He gasped at the hot shudder that ran down his throat and out through his stomach into his blood. Was this what it was like for humans? No wonder people got addicted to the relaxing warmth inside, when everything outside was so cold.  
  
He opened his eyes to see Lex's eyes on him, amused, and as warm as the tingling in his fingers. "Maybe I should have the glass and you should have the bottle. Though I hate to think of how much six hundred dollar brandy it would take to get you drunk. Can you even get drunk?"  
  
"I dunno," Clark muttered. Why would Lex ask him something like that? "Never tried. Jona -- Dad -- yelled at me for sneaking one of his beers when I -- when Pete -- last year. Not that he had to. Tasted awful. Poured it out in the garden."  
  
Lex leaned forward, eyes glittering. "Heh. Either you do respond to alcohol, or...." He put down the bottle, demeanor changing suddenly and harshly. "Clark, why did you start to call your father by his first name, and then change your mind?"  
  
Clark met his eyes, and the brandy's warmth drained away. "Because Jonathan Kent isn't my father," he said tiredly. "But you knew that. Everybody knows that."  
  
"Yes, it's common knowledge that you're adopted." Lex went to get another bottle, twisted the top off it, and handed it to Clark. He didn't so much as raise an eyebrow when Clark took the 1.75 liter glass bottle as if it were a paper cup. "But you've always seemed happy with your adopted family. More so than I with my blood sire."   
  
He lifted his bottle, an expression sardonic enough to scare a wolf. "To my dear old dad, may he and Satan be too busy trying to destroy each other and fight over who rules in hell to bother with humanity ever again." He pretended to drink deeply, and motioned for Clark to do the same. Clark swallowed half a bottle of flavored rum and felt the blanketing, distancing warmth slowly envelop him again.  
  
Lex watched the slight shift in his expression carefully. Yes, it did seem that Clark could be affected by alcohol, though he recovered faster than even Lex at his most furious. As fast as he recovered from the obviously terrible effects of the meteorites. As fast, almost, as he could run. Lex snickered, and the sound made him aware of his own alcohol intake. No, he was not going to tell Pete that the high-speed camera included a secure transmitter.  
  
Lex leaned forward again carefully. "You see, I can understand if you have issues with your father figures. Did you find out something about your own biological father? Please tell me it's not Lionel. We would have to compete on what to do to even the score."  
  
"Jor-El," Clark said thickly, and then several dozen syllables in no language Lex had ever heard, although he spoke five fluently and ten more passably. Then Clark drained the rest of the glass bottle and stood suddenly, so fast that Lex didn't see him move, and hurled the empty bottle at the fireplace with explosive force. The unintelligible language went on for several more syllables in what was all too clearly both a plea and a curse.   
  
Lex peeked over from behind the desk from where he had thrown himself instinctively at Clark's first motion, to see Clark covering his face with his hands. Sobbing.  
  
Okay, this was completely unacceptable. Besides, the BBC market report was on.  
  
Lex walked over to touch the stereo control on, to give Clark a few seconds to regain his composure, for some boring background noise that they could both pretend to listen to, and for himself to hunt through every idea he had ever wondered about his unusual friend to explain what had cut Clark so completely loose (aside from enough booze to kill a yak) and what language that was he was sobbing in, and what he might have meant by "Jor-El."  
  
"Clark. Don't break my arm or anything, okay? Sit down. You're probably as tired as I am. And your dad -- Jonathan -- is right. One beer is about your limit at five in the morning." He touched Clark tentatively, as cautious of the younger man's emotional state as he was of the power and speed he had already seen Clark demonstrate. He wondered what the mass-velocity equations would tell him about the crater in his fireplace. "Sit down."  
  
Clark -- well, collapsed was an accurate description. He had stood up longer against the deadly greenish radiation. "I'm sorry, Lex." Choked.  
  
"I will not accept that." Lex stood over him, arms folded. Clark looked up at him like a kicked puppy. Lex refrained from slapping him around a little. He remembered, vaguely, shooting Clark with a semi-automatic, and watching the bullets ricochet off. But the wide-eyed puppy look was almost enough to make him go open that drawer again.  
  
Or maybe finding a rerun of Survivor and carrying through on his promise to himself.  
  
"You don't owe me any apologies. If anything, I owe you one. I was pushing where I obviously had no business. It's another Luthor habit -- we tend to treat everyone else's family the way we do our own." He started to pour himself another drink, then reconsidered. The sky was beginning to lighten from black to cobalt. He went to the refrigerator and retrieved two bottles of water instead, pressing one into Clark's still lax hand.  
  
"Clark, if you want to tell me what you were just saying, I would love to hear the translation. But if not, then just tell me whatever it is you came over to tell me." He sat down and drank some water. "I am not going to pry at you. It's just not worth it to me any more."  
  
Clark rubbed the cool wet bottle against his forehead before opening it. "How much did Chloe tell you?" he asked tiredly, as the alcohol sugar wore off.  
  
Lex raised an eyebrow. "Chloe hasn't told me anything. I haven't even seen her since I got back, except at the hospital. What did she tell you that she had told me?" Okay, that was pretty much a new low in grammar for a Luthor, but consider the circumstances.  
  
"She said she hadn't told you everything." Clark rubbed his eyes, and then stiffened. "No. She said she hadn't told HIM everything. She never referred to you by name."  
  
Lex said several very unsophisticated words under his breath. "Clark. Chloe has been spending a certain amount of time with my dear old dad over the summer. He got her an intern's job at the Daily Planet. I wondered what he thought he was going to get for it in return. I should have known better than to jump to the immediate conclusion. Lionel likes them young, but he can pay for that in the city without incurring any other obligations."  
  
Clark spent a good minute of long practice and hard-won control trying not to be sick. Even though it had already been metabolized, the alcohol he'd gulped wasn't helping. He didn't realize he'd closed his eyes and bent his head in shallow-breathing concentration until a cold wet cloth was placed in his hand.   
  
"Clark?" Lex's voice came from much too close. "Lie down." He pushed lightly, and Clark complied. "Sometimes I forget that not everyone takes for granted what I do."  
  
"Chloe," Clark managed, through a tightness in his throat that both made it hard to breathe and mercifully hard to spew everything left in his stomach. "And Lionel...."  
  
"If he's forced her, he won't live to see sunset, and I don't give a damn if he's listening right now," Lex said in that icy rage that was so quiet that Clark had to concentrate to hear. "If it was Chloe's choice, then there may be ... things we need to talk about."   
  
Lex decided on the spur of the moment not to tell Clark that he was perfectly willing to kill Chloe too, if she was a real danger to the special person in front of him. That might become one of those lies that would forever be between them, because Clark would never be able to understand or forgive what Lex knew was necessary.  
  
"She said that -- she hadn't told him everything. That's all I know." Clark lay trying to focus on the ceiling, trying to put pieces together. He wasn't really all that good at it. Chloe had always been the one who did it for him.  
  
And he had always taken that, and her, for granted. As many times as he had accused her of snooping, as many times as he had abandoned her, hurt her, he had always assumed that she would still simply be there. Clark's breath caught somewhere between a choke and a sob. Why should he expect her loyalty, when he had done so little to earn it?  
  
He had taken her fascinating and inquisitive nature and used it against her. And then he had run her off. He couldn't blame her for going to Lionel. He couldn't have blamed her if she'd tried to kill him herself.  
  
"So what didn't she tell him, Clark?" Lex's voice was deceptive velvet, and Clark turned his head to look at him in puzzlement. Lex smiled slightly and touched his finger to his lips. The tiny shushing gesture would have been meaningless to anyone who didn't know what they were talking about. Lex might have been stroking a drop of brandy from his upper lip. "Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. Do you feel up to a walk around the garden?"  
  
Clark didn't, really, but he understood what Lex was trying to do. He sighed and struggled back to a sitting position. He hadn't made it to his feet yet when Lex touched his control panel again.  
  
The explosion sent him to the floor with a scream as his senses shattered. Blind and deaf and unable to feel -- it wasn't like kryptonite, it wasn't like anything else ever, but it hurt, and he couldn't tell what was there anymore, couldn't even feel anything under his hands....  
  
"Clark!" The voice came from far away and right in his ears at the same time. "Clark, god, answer me!"  
  
"What .. what .. hap ... pened...?"  
  
"Oh. God." Lex sat back on his heels from where he had futilely been trying to give Clark CPR, wiping sweat from his head with the shirt he had ripped off. "Thank all of the gods. When you screamed.... Dammit, Clark, I thought you were almost invulnerable. That was an EMP -- an electro-magnetic pulse. I was just disabling whatever spy-eyes Lionel had planted. I didn't realize ... I didn't mean to.... What did it do to you?"  
  
"I'm ... I'll ... be ... okay." Clark lifted a hand to his head and found it was no effort, though he still couldn't see much and wasn't sure if he was touching anything. Lex's voice faded in and out. "My ... s-senses ... k-kind of like ... your ... s-spy-eyes."  
  
Lex said several words that Luthors weren't even supposed to know, much less say out loud, and not all of them were in English. "I didn't even think of that." Another un-Luthor word. "And I should have. Of course you would feel it, if you can see through walls."  
  
"You ... know...?"  
  
"Clark, when you were standing in the middle of the yard with six separate cameras trained on you -- and it's going to really piss off the guards to have to replace that whole system -- you were looking right at me. Not at any of the cameras. At me. Through that wall there. Which, in case you haven't noticed, does not have any windows, and there are three walls between there and where you were standing. Remember what I said about being careless?" Lex got up and went to put more ice in the cloth, berating himself. He was hardly one to talk about being careless. He'd assumed Clark's denser cell structure would protect him, not make him more vulnerable. His physics professor was going to give him holy hell.  
  
Right, like he was going to tell even Doctor Reeve about Clark. When hell froze absolutely solid and Lionel owned the ice skating concession. All he wanted right now was to know what Lionel knew about Clark. The meteorites had been a dead giveaway. But if dear old dad knew about the red stones.... Lex would rather see Clark tied down and cut open than running on his equivalent of crack again. Physically, he healed insanely fast. Mentally....  
  
He put the cold cloth pack over Clark's eyes, gently moving Clark's hand out of the way. Clark allowed it. Lex was fully aware that he couldn't have moved Clark's little finger with both hands if he hadn't. "At least we can talk without fear of any interruptions or interceptions now. When you feel up to it. If you feel up to it."  
  
Clark sighed tiredly. The ice pack had felt pretty good, for a few seconds, with his sense of touch still reeling. But as the shock wore off, so did his ability to take comfort from any of the things that humans felt. Temperature, moisture content, texture ... no longer something to feel, but to categorize and check off in mental boxes. Hearing, 5 Hz to 150 kHz, check. Vision, one angstrom to ten million, check. "I'll be fine, Lex." Ability to tell the truth, to admit to what he was and trust in other people, still tearing his mind in half.  
  
Lex sat down on the floor beside him. "That doesn't answer my question."  
  
The hell with it. He had known that coming back was going to strip him raw. Cyrus had talked to him about it, warned him what it was like to lose your mind and have to find it again. To spend the days screaming at the things you couldn't stop, and the nights crying over the things you could. To not even dare to let someone hold your hand, for fear of hurting them. There wasn't anything left that could be harder than what he had already been through.  
  
How had Lex put it? It wasn't worth it anymore.  
  
"So now that you're pretty sure we're not being spied on." Clark could have sat up, but didn't feel like it. Didn't feel like meeting Lex's eyes. "What do you want me to say?"  
  
"I want you to not lie to me anymore. And I'll try not to lie to you."  
  
Clark made a small unhappy laugh. "That's pretty much what Chloe said." He rolled over and propped his head on a hand, still not looking at Lex. "What do you think she told him?"  
  
"That's what I was going to ask you," Lex said quietly, respecting his hesitancy. "What's the worst thing that she could have told him?"  
  
Clark looked like he was about to cry. Lex cursed himself again. Of all the stupid, painful things to have to ask the kid.... "Clark. You have to remember, that's just how Luthors think. Always looking for a weak spot, an advantage. But I'm not doing it to hurt you. I have to know what Lionel knows if I'm going to be able to protect you from him."  
  
Clark bowed his head. Lex, ever the strategist, even in an early morning of emotional intimacy and after a day of insanity and revelations. "You already know about the meteorites. You know I'm faster and stronger than a human could be, and can see through things. What else would -- what do I ... dammit, Lex, what can I say?"  
  
Lex stood up and locked his hands behind his back. "You said, 'than a human.' Are you a meteorite mutant who somehow managed not to go crazy, Clark? Are you human?"  
  
Clark tried to look up at Lex, and failed. "No, I'm not a meteor mutant. No, I'm not sure I haven't gone crazy. And no, I'm not from Earth."  
  
Lex gaped at him, but said nothing. He took several deep breaths, staring down at the teenage boy slumped on his floor. He blinked and forced his eyes back into his head.  
  
No, I'm not from Earth. Sitting curled up on the floor in a small town in Kansas.  
  
"I think," Lex breathed, "That that's the part that Chloe didn't tell anyone."  
  
Clark finally managed to raise his head. Picking up a tractor was a lot easier. "So Lionel doesn't know I'm...."  
  
"An ET?" Lex finished, and then barked a laugh. "I could write a book on how stupid that sounds. Would you like some M&Ms?"  
  
Clark choked. "Actually, I do like M&Ms. Doesn't everybody?"  
  
Lex squatted in front of him, the glint of devilment in his eyes. "Even the green ones?"  
  
Clark felt his skin crawl, then nerved himself, and managed to face Lex. "I like lime starbursts and lifesavers and ice cream, too." Taking that first step seemed to open the flood gates. "Dammit, Lex, I was raised on this planet. I didn't even know I was an alien myself until a few years ago. I don't THINK of myself as an alien. Just because I could destroy this castle or this town or this state or this country or probably this whole world with one hand. Or with the heat vision, without even moving. It's still my home, the only one I've ever known. And you could still kill me just by opening that box."  
  
Probably no one except a Luthor would have taken such a revelation of power as something to be intrigued by, instead of to be wary of. Or frightened of. Lex just sat back down on the floor, making himself comfortable at Clark's current eye level. "Heat vision?"  
  
Clark glanced over at the fireplace, at the shattered remains of the rum bottle. Five seconds later, Lex's fireplace had an interesting new glaze. Clark lowered his head again. "I still want to be a kid who grew up on a farm and had a crush on girls and might write a book some day," he said, almost voicelessly. "I spent my whole life trying not to be a freak. Trying to hide it. I don't know why I'm here, why I am what I am. I don't know what to do."  
  
The touch to his forehead startled him as much as any bullet ever had. His head snapped up again, eyes wide, to meet Lex's steel blue, yet somehow sympathetic, gaze.  
  
"We could start by shaving your head, so you can learn how not to be able to hide being a freak," Lex offered, casually caustic, brushing Clark's hair back.  
  
Clark stared at him in disbelief. Then he began to giggle. "Oh, Lex," he forced out through snorts, "I'm really sorry. I wasn't thinking when I said that. Really. Maybe you're from another planet too. Aren't the aliens all supposed to have big bald heads?"  
  
"That's right, and big funny-looking eyes too." Lex stretched his eyes wide and made a Marvin-the-Martian look. "Take me to your leader. Oh, wait, that would be me anyway."  
  
Clark fell on his back, helpless with laughter. "How do you do that, Lex?"  
  
"What, imitate an alien? I've been doing that since I was five. Long before I met you. Long before you -- unless, wait, was that you I saw, the day the meteors came down?"  
  
"No, I meant, how do you deal with the impossible like it's just another business deal?" Clark shook his head. "But yeah, that was me." His eyes went distant. "All the people who died -- and what happened to you -- that was me. I'm ... sorry."  
  
Lex's hand, which he had settled gently in a kind of reassurance on Clark, reared back and slapped him. Hard. Clark stared at him. Even at speed, it took him so completely by surprise that he wouldn't have caught it in time to dodge. "What did you do that for?"  
  
"That's how I deal with recalcitrant business partners too, Clark," Lex said lazily. "Pay attention. No one in my corporation is allowed to take the blame for anything unless I say so." His eyes were suddenly very hard. "And I sure as hell don't allow little children to take the blame for anything. Even Lionel wouldn't stoop that low.  
  
"Impossible? Very nearly all of my business deals are a matter of putting a perspective on the impossible. You're not even a potential deal yet. There's not a lot of demand for melting shattered rum bottles that I can't take care of with a flamethrower."  
  
Clark stiffened. "You have a -- potential deal -- for an alien?"  
  
"Well, yeah, maybe." Lex yawned. "Depends on how good you turn out to be. In college," he clarified, at Clark's startled withdrawal, eyes glinting again. Lex knew exactly what he had said, and what Clark had immediately assumed. "I have no use for a second-rate business partner. Good accountants and technical writers are easy to come by, for LexCorp."  
  
Clark sighed. Lex was offering someone from another planet an OFFICE job. After all the strangeness and lies, and all the things that both of them really ought to be terrified of, Lex was back to being what Clark had always known, the sardonic friend with the unyielding front of someone much too young to rule the world, but already determined to do so.   
  
As opposed to what Clark's extra-solar heritage had ordered him to do. "Only you," he said, relaxed enough to be tired again. "Only you could take this so ... easily."  
  
Lex put a hand back on him, staring into his eyes. "How did you take it, Clark?"  
  
Meeting Lex's eyes was as frightening as staring into the deadly green. "What do you think? I freaked. All my life I'd known I wasn't normal. Picking up a car when you're eight is kind of a clue. But a spaceship in the storm cellar? What would you have done?"  
  
"Heh." Lex shrugged, thinking, and went to the refrigerator, getting some juice for both of them. "Honestly? I don't know. Run tests on myself. Pushed my limits. Destroyed, like you said, the latest rotten school I had been exiled to. Taken over the world at age 15. But then, I'm a Luthor. That's what we do. It's a damn good thing you were raised a Kent."  
  
Clark sighed. "Lex, anyone ever tell you that you're weird?"  
  
"This from the brat who sees through walls and melts glass with his eyes. Drink your damn juice. You want some bagels with that?"  
  
Clark snorted out a snoot full of juice. Only Lex.  
  
The banging on the front door actually startled even Lex. He jumped up, spinning automatically to his cameras, then sighed. "Goddammit, I even forgot that I fried those myself. You're a damn distraction, Clark. Go use your heat vision on the bagels while I kill whatever bill collector is stupid enough to bother a Luthor at oh-five-thirty. Where's my Uzi? Never mind, you can always throw him through a wall or something."  
  
Clark was choking on his juice. Lex kicked him to get his attention. "What, are you allergic to your mom's own fresh-squeezed too? How did you get through first grade? Ow. Remind me to wear steel-toed shoes next time I kick you. What's your problem?"  
  
"You," Clark choked. "You're acting so ... *normal* ..."  
  
"What's not to be normal about? I have a billion dollars in pocket change, and you pick up tractors. Wait until you meet the cats. That'll teach you what's not normal. I didn't name them after the Furies for no reason." The door rattled again, and so did Lex's temper. "Keep your #$%^&! shoes on! #$%^&*, of course, I fried the intercom too." He paused to look down at Clark, still curled up on the floor. "You going to be okay?"  
  
Clark looked up, and this time it was no effort to meet Lex's eyes. In fact, it was as wonderful as the sunrise. "With a friend like you, Lex ... I think I'll always be okay."  
  
"You're a *^%$ optimist." Lex stalked, rumpled and still half drunk, with murderous intent clear in every line of his pale skin, towards their intruder, who was pounding at the door again. But he paused in the doorway to look back at Clark. "I'm holding you to that."  
  
Clark sat up, taking in with wonder the man who had not only accepted what he was, but become his protector. Clark had told him that he could destroy the world, and Lex had said that anyone who tried to hurt Clark would answer to Lex Luthor. "To what?"  
  
Lex's expression softened. He fought not to show the fear -- not of his friend, but for his friend, the thought of losing his friend. "To always being okay."  
  
Don't touch that red crap again. Don't blame yourself again. Don't forget who you are again. Clark bent his head and close his eyes. "I promise." At least to try.  
  
Lex relaxed as if he had just put on his tie. "Good. Go deal with the bagels. If you can do heat vision and x-ray at the same time, you can watch me kick someone's ass."  
  
Clark fell back on the floor again in giggles, and Lex glared at him. "Just don't set fire to the kitchen! The cook will kill you, and I promise you that her spoon is deadlier than any green rocks. She even scares your mom."  
  
The visitor proved to be a young man with longish hair and the most intent eyes that Lex had ever seen. He wavered between hiring him for his audacity and killing him right there. Here was someone with potential. Unknown, but definitely potential.  
  
Cyrus smiled and held out his hand. "Lex. We haven't formally met."  
  
Lex took the handshake automatically, and went to his knees in agony. Appendicitis and kidney stones hadn't hurt like this. Lex couldn't scream because he couldn't breathe. His body was coming apart. He wanted to die right then and there. Please.  
  
"That," said the young man coldly, "Is level one. If you hurt Clark again, I can go up to a scale of ten. And I can keep you alive long enough to feel every second of it."  
  
"C ... Clark..."  
  
And Clark was THERE, no entrance, just suddenly holding Cyrus in a grip that would have been death except for Clark's fierce control. "Bill. Let him go. Now."  
  
Cyrus had still been channeling anti-healing, and Clark was taking it.  
  
The pain was like the meteorites, but it wasn't aimed at him, couldn't kill him, so he held on, using just enough of his strength to let the healer know that he meant it. "STOP it!"  
  
"He...." Cyrus gasped when Clark's arms tightened. No one had ever been able to stand against the touch of his fire. Clark was HOLDING him. "He hurt you!"  
  
"I did it myself. And stay the hell out of my mind if you're not going to pay attention. The Baron would beat the crap out of you for being so careless."  
  
"Sez the moron who picked up a tractor where every satellite orbiting Earth could see it!" Cyrus shifted his attention, one hand on Clark, the other on Lex. The energy changed to warmth and calm and good things, and Clark let out the breath he'd been holding. Cyrus could have killed them both in his anger.   
  
Clark knew that feeling. Unfortunately.  
  
"So," Lex managed, wondering if breathing was all it was cracked up to be if people kept taking it away from you, "I gather that you .. know about ... Clark."  
  
Cyrus frowned. "I was about to rip you apart over that."  
  
"I," Lex managed to force himself to stand up, "rather got that idea." He brushed uselessly at his slacks. "Clark, would you go get the juice and toast? I think your friend and I need to talk."  
  
Clark looked back and forth between a very angry Cyrus and a pretty pissed off Luthor. "I can hear what you say, you know."  
  
"That should not be a problem."  
  
Gods, even after being put through more in ten minutes than most people were in one lifetime -- your friend is an alien, and his friend can rip you apart by touching you -- Lex still had a crease in his slacks. "Okay. Fine. Bagels coming up. I do not want to see any dead bodies when I come back." Clark failed to keep a tremble out of his voice. "Please."  
  
Cyrus and Lex gave him exactly the same look. Keep the supersensitive hearing out of it. You are not responsible for everything. This is not your fight.  
  
From the kitchen, Clark blanched when he heard Lex yelling at Cyrus. Lex NEVER yelled. He wondered about ripping open the drawer with that rock just to get their attention when he heard Cyrus hit Lex.  
  
He went supersonic to try to get between them. Cyrus hissed at him and held up a hand that, to his visual spectrum, glowed. "Do not start with me, Kal-El. You will not win."  
  
Clark swallowed, fighting terror and tears. "Who's the strongest one in the room?"  
  
"I am." Cyrus extricated himself from the pile and sat back on Lex's couch, to the billionaire's interest and breathless amusement. "So shut up and listen."  
  
"I for one, am listening," Lex drawled, eye already darkening from the punch.  
  
"I cannot read your mind," Cyrus said quietly. "But I know who you are. I know you better than you know yourself. I can either kill you right now, or let you go until another day. Depending on what you choose next. I could actually even believe in you some day. If you will believe in yourself. And if you give me one thing."  
  
Lex was obviously making an effort not to show pain. Cyrus hadn't just punched him in the face. "Cyrus," Clark started, truly worried at knowing just how real that threat was, and how little the empath would care about murder charges, considering the people who had trained him. "I can't let you -- "   
  
Lex put Clark on pause with a raised hand. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?"  
  
"You have all the choices in the world. Make the right one, and Clark will stay your friend instead of becoming your enemy. I might even learn to help you out. Make the wrong one, and Lionel will not live long enough to have your death investigated. No, Lex, that is not a threat. Or a promise. Pay attention. Clark saved my life. Clark saved my soul. No one threatens him without going through me first. What is that damn box doing in your desk?"  
  
Lex looked away. "I just ... wanted to know. And there had to be -- one left."  
  
"You're freaking Stephen Hawking already? Why didn't you just ASK?"  
  
Lex turned to meet his eyes. "I did. Clark lied."  
  
Clark was looking back and forth between them uneasily.  
  
"Wanna be tortured again?" Cyrus was on his feet suddenly, eyes dangerous again. "Want to touch me again, Luthor? Want a taste of what those green rocks feel like?" Cyrus put his hand on Lex's shoulder. "Want to know what it's like not to be human, Lex?"  
  
"Cyrus ... Bill ... don't ... please...."  
  
Cyrus close his eyes, focusing all his mental talent. "Go away, Clark. Beg, Lex."  
  
"I will not." Clark took Cyrus by the wrists and pulled him away from Lex. Gently. Everyone present knew that he could have smashed bone with his fingertips, and was holding back only because he was more afraid of himself than of anything else on the planet. Everyone present also knew that Cyrus could have had Clark on his knees through their contact, that even Clark had no defenses against Cyrus when they were touching.  
  
"I will." Lex's voice was feather-soft. "For Clark's safety. I will beg. Do whatever you have to. Take whatever you need to." Lex tapped his head, making it clear that he understood that his opponent could rape his mind. "But if you hurt Clark, I won't give a damn how long either my father or I live. I will guarantee that you won't survive it either."  
  
Cyrus let out a breath. "I hate it when people tell me the absolute truth."  
  
"Then don't ask for it."  
  
The staring contest between Cyrus and Lex scared Clark as badly as any green rock ever had. "Stop it," he said, as forcefully as he could manage with his eyes closed. "I am not your damn toy. I am not your damn prize."  
  
The two looked at him in astonishment. Realizing, through the one's empathic talent, and the other's ability to read and manipulate people, that they had been doing exactly what they had both been most intent on not doing.  
  
Cyrus squirmed a little in Clark's grip. "Sorry, Kal. Clark. Don't take it so hard. It's all just part of ... coming back. To what we are. Sometimes you lose your perspective."  
  
Clark released him, dropping to the floor. "I'm -- I only want to be human again. As much as I can. To belong. I know you can understand that. But you're not...."  
  
"Like you?" Cyrus finished. "No, my friend, we're not. But you're not like me, and the billion-dollar boy here isn't like you or me, either. Am I going to have to slap you again to get the part about being all kinds of human in the head through to you?"  
  
"You were both born on this planet."  
  
"And you haven't been kicked out of eleven academies," Lex countered, getting into the spirit of things. "Yet," he added thoughtfully.  
  
"You can't pick up a tractor." Clark made a small smile at the thought of being kicked out of even one academy. His father would KILL him. Not to mention his mom.  
  
"I can hire a crew to pick up a tractor. Or ten of them. Assuming I'd want to."  
  
"I can fix that black eye." Cyrus extended his hand to Lex, warily. "If you want."  
  
"Nah. Dear old dad will be over in a few hours, especially since I fried his spyware. It will make for an interesting topic of non-conversation."  
  
"You can't see through walls."  
  
"Of course I can. Though the security system replacement will take at least a day. And leave the damn county next time I have to clean out the bugs, will you?"  
  
"You can't burn stuff with your eyes," Clark tried, wondering where he was going with this, and why.  
  
"Want to come to a staff meeting and watch me?" Lex glared sleepily at him.  
  
"Clark, the point is, you DO belong here. You ARE one of us. Would you just put that into what passes for your brain already before both of us have to hit you?"  
  
Clark took a deep breath. It seemed to be his day for being slapped around "Dare you."  
  
Lex and Cyrus tackled him so fast and unexpectedly that Clark didn't have time to react, even at full speed. They must have been planning this even while they yelled at each other. And oh gods, Cyrus knew where he was ticklish. Clark yelped.  
  
Fortunately the sun was over the horizon and his stamina was back up to full. Clark was the last one standing when they had finished wrestling to the point that the other two couldn't catch their breath any more.  
  
"Hey, William," Lex mumbled, "Wanna be experimented on by a mad scientist? There's a few spare bedrooms around here somewhere."  
  
"Heh. Buy me a purple shirt, and you got a deal."  
  
"Purple's not your color. Dark gray, maybe. Navy. Or silver. Silk."  
  
"Get some sleep, Lex. You're going delusional on us."  
  
"Wait until you meet the cats." Lex yawned. And then he was out like a light.  
  
Cyrus ran his hand over Lex's eye and jaw where he had been punched, wincing at the alcohol poisoning as well as the damage he had done himself. Putting Lex to sleep hadn't taken more than a touch and a thought. "Lex really cares about you, you know."  
  
"Yeah, sure, which is why he has a box of refined kryptonite in his desk."  
  
Cyrus rolled over. He was exhausted physically, as well as emotionally taken apart. "You/re from another damn planet, Kal. Power and knowledge that he only dared dream about. No matter how much money he ever makes, how many people he dominates, he'll never be anything more than just another Earthling. It's killing him inside that you even exist. Much less that you were right here under his nose all along, and wouldn't tell him.  
  
"You lied to someone who trusted you as a friend. Who wanted, still wants, to help you, as Clark and as Kal, and doesn't know how. After what he's been through most of his life, you were pretty much the straw that broke his back. He's still not much more than a kid himself. And he's never had a friend until he met you. You want to feel it?" Cyrus put one hand on Lex's head, and held out the other to Clark. "I guarantee you that you won't enjoy it."  
  
Clark recoiled. "No. Probably not." I have enough baggage myself.  
  
"He's hurting. So are you. And both of you are blaming yourselves."  
  
"Tell me something I don't know," Clark bit back.  
  
"All right." Cyrus took a deep breath. "Come here."  
  
Like I need to be hurt any more. Leave me alone. "Are you some kind of sadist, Bill? You enjoy putting us through this?"  
  
"No, I don't. You have no idea how much I wish I could spare you. Both of you. But I don't have the power to stop what will happen to you, both of you, otherwise. You do. Unless you want to end up incurably psychotic. Like Lake."  
  
Clark paled. A lethally dangerous superhuman., out of control.... "N-no."  
  
"Then COME HERE. And brace yourself."  
  
Cyrus could claim not to be able to read minds all he wanted, but Clark was never going to believe him again. For him to know exactly what buttons to push, what Clark's worst nightmare was, he had to have been living in his head all these months since the red rock.  
  
Which, come to think of it, he more or less had been. They'd been linked since the day of the meteors, never mind the first time Bill had actually touched him.  
  
Clark closed his eyes. He had known that coming back was not going to be easy. But he knew it had to be done. If he couldn't be part of this world again.... He would rather go open that drawer than hurt his friends any more. Much less do what he had so casually, unthinkingly, mentioned to Lex that he could do. What he might yet do, some day, if he ever lost his sanity so completely again. Even just thinking of that made him feel sick.  
  
If being hurt was the price he had to pay for humanity, he would pay it gladly.  
  
He knelt, and reached out to take Cyrus' hand.  
  
Cyrus cracked another tooth. 


	3. You want Purple, we got Purple

Clark woke up on the cold stone floor of the library in Lex's mansion, and groaned. The cold didn't bother him. The stone didn't bother him. But Lex and Cyrus were both snoring loud enough to make an elephant want to compete, and it was KILLING him. He crawled and stumbled to the bathroom with a headache like nothing he'd felt outside of the green rocks, wondering if aspirin would work on him, trying to block his ears.  
  
Hypersensitive hearing again. Just great. Of what POSSIBLE use was that? If his old man Jor-El had designed this weird sensory capacity into him, then some day he was going to get Lex to build him a time machine so he could go back and strangle the jerk with his bare hands before he died from having a planet explode under him. Their great-great-greats were the ones who designed the bomb that blew up the planet anyway. Fair game.  
  
I hate you, father. I hate the home world I can't even remember. I would rather have died with you than be here all alone with nothing except that stupid ship's computer version of you trying to take over my mind. Clark threw up what little was left in his stomach.  
  
Lex was behind him as suddenly as if he were the one with supersonic speed, with a bowl of ice chips. "Don't chew on them," he said. "Frank Morrell will kick my ass if you ever actually have to get a crown and he breaks all his drills on you." And then he was gone again.  
  
Clark sucked on a piece of ice, holding a few more to his head. How had Lex known? Well, aside from the experiences of a few misadventures of his own to draw from.  
  
Clark tried very hard to be amused at the thought, and managed a chuckle. Then he upchucked the ice. Jor-El was rerunning lectures in his head like a broken record. Where had that expression come from? Records were old pieces of vinyl. Before his time.  
  
Go away, old man. You sent me here. Deal with it. I belong to Earth now.  
  
I am not going to rule them. I am not going to establish some master race.  
  
I am never going to drink rum again.  
  
Cyrus was prowling the kitchen by the time he finally got there, half dressed in Lex's pajama bottoms. "You call this an orange? Lex, I've seen better oranges falling off freebie trucks. You buy and sell corporations, and you can't get decent fruit? I'll tell the Inquirer."  
  
"Try it. They'll never find your body." Lex leaned back , elegantly lazy, wearing nothing but his silk underwear. "Go make some coffee."  
  
"I'm not your damn servant." Bill's voice was offended, and dangerous.  
  
"That's not what I meant. Mi casa and all that. Anyway, I sent all the servants away when Clark showed up. Prying ears, you know." Lex yawned. "And the last time I made coffee, everybody in the dorm was sick for hours. My coffee is worse than Clark's green rocks. You want coffee and breakfast, you know where the kitchen is."  
  
"Gah. In that case, the healer would rather make coffee than try to cure you of it. Clark, you wanna come see if your billionaire friend actually has any food in the house?"  
  
"Clark has a hangover. He probably isn't interested in food." Lex's voice was sleepy, but his glance was totally aware. Questioning.  
  
Clark sighed. "No, Lex, I don't get hangovers. But you knew that, didn't you?"  
  
"I knew you could stop a bullet with your bare hand and throw a large glass bottle clear through a fireplace wall, but no, I didn't know you didn't get hangovers." Lex yawned again. "So what was the toilet hugging about? And you want a fresh shirt? I probably have something in your size around here somewhere. And you should call your parents."  
  
Do not lie to me. It was going to be the hardest thing he'd ever learned. Or unlearned. Not to lie, after a lifetime of hiding and secrets. "I can make it home as fast as I can make a call," he admitted. "Unless you want me to hang around."  
  
Lex fixed him with interested eyes. Cyrus, in the process of trying to find something in the refrigerator that he even recognized, went utterly still. Their thoughts were obvious mirrors. Whether any of us survives depends on what you choose next. Clark looked away.  
  
"Why don't you spend some time here? At least until you get cleaned up." Lex smirked. "It will annoy dear old dad. William won't even have to shake hands with him."  
  
Cyrus barked a short laugh. "It was a temptation. He knows about the rocks."  
  
"Mm. You didn't hear about the explosion in the Luthor Corp building in Metropolis, did you?"  
  
"I've been out of town. Kind of, otherwise occupied."  
  
Lex shook his head. "It was even on the BBC. Very sad. Seems there was this vault with all kinds of hazardous materials illegally stored there. They went critical one night. The bomb team and firefighters detected traces of radioactives in the remains. Not nuclear bombs, but definitely hazardous waste, so it was all sent to the nuclear disposal site in Arizona." His eyes glinted at Clark. "I don't recommend that you try joining the Superfund cleanup team."  
  
Cyrus stared at him. Then he brought him a cup of coffee. "You didn't. How?"  
  
"I'm a Luthor." Lex gestured a magnanimous thanks with the coffee. "A word here and there, a senator here and there, and priority for the removal of certain radioactive rocks from the small town in Kansas got pushed ahead of the sugar plantation pollution cleanup in Florida, which they should be funding themselves anyway, since they caused it, and we can't exactly be held responsible for a meteor strike."  
  
Clark, who was not quite as fast on the uptake as the empath, finally realized what Lex was saying about the "accident" in the Luthor Corp building too. "Lex, you...."  
  
"Go call your parents. And take a shower. You smell like cheap rum."  
  
"I do not!" Clark didn't sweat, except around ... oh. "Lex?"  
  
"Yes?" Lex crossed his legs, elegant in nothing except his underwear, but the half-second glance he traded with Cyrus said that he knew exactly what Clark was about to ask.  
  
"If you're having all the rest removed...." If you're doing this for me, to protect me, he wanted to say, and didn't know how, "Why do you have that kryptonite in your desk?"  
  
"I told you. Kryptonite? Where did you come up with such a ridiculous word?" Lex finished his coffee and stood up. "Excellent coffee, William. You're hired. Purple shirt if you want it, though I still say it's not your color. Excuse me, dad's at the door, and he doesn't know I changed the locks yet."  
  
Clark had heard the car drive up, but he didn't think any Terran creature short of a bat or a cetacean had hearing that good. Then he saw that Lex's watch -- not the same one he had been wearing last night -- had a transmitter and contact alarm built in. Of course, Lex's security team worked around the clock; they would have come to investigate the EMP, and started replacing the sensors already.  
  
Well, that explained how the other two had been awake to change clothes while he was out of it. Cyrus must have put him to sleep when he linked him to Lex. Lex's violent, roiling emotions had been ... well, not like anything he had ever seen Lex show. So many contradictions, so much need.  
  
Cyrus must have blocked the nightmares, too.  
  
He had to consciously refocus from the inadvertent x-ray. The expanded senses were becoming all too easy for human comfort. "You're meeting your dad in your underwear?"  
  
"Why not? And William, feel free shake hands with him if you want to, but do it on the stone floor. Vomit probably won't come out of the Arabian carpet."  
  
Clark took a deep breath. "Lex. You didn't answer my question."  
  
"You didn't answer mine about the toilet session this morning. Later, perhaps?"  
  
Lex had put a question mark after perhaps. Cyrus ducked his head into folded hands to hide the grin. A question, as to an equal, not a demand. Oh, boy, he was going to enjoy this. And maybe, even, he would be able to bring them all back. It would make all his own screaming madness and ruthless training worthwhile, if he could save these two.  
  
"It's a ... long story," Clark said softly, offering. "Like, a whole lifetime long."  
  
Alexander Luthor considered Clark for a long minute, then conceded this match to the teenager with a small nod. "Some other time, then. As for your answer, I told you. If anyone ever actually has to kill you, it will be me."  
  
Clark called home and made reassuring noises about the lack of sleep, then took advantage of the shower to drown out the unnaturally acute hearing. Later, though, he would wish he had thought to at least watch when a near-naked Lex opened the door for his perfectly dressed father and asked calmly, "Yes? What can we do for you?"  
  
Lionel kept himself in shape, or he would have had a heart attack on the spot. Then he caught sight of Cyrus on the couch in Lex's silver pajama bottoms, and very nearly had a stroke. "I thought we had an appointment, son."  
  
"Oh, yeah. Right. Had it on my planner. Something fried all the electronics last night, though. Too bad." Lex wandered away. "Want some coffee? William over there made it."  
  
"So long as you didn't, yes." Lionel's eyes narrowed, moving over Cyrus appraisingly. "Adding to your 'collection,' son?"  
  
"I dunno." Lex looked over at Cyrus, calculating. "You swing that way, Will?"  
  
Cyrus snorted. "Nope, not me. You're not a psi talent. I can't hack it with anyone who doesn't have the mental control."  
  
Lionel stiffened. "Mental ... powers?"  
  
Lex gave him a warning glance. "I don't think you really want to go there."  
  
"Yeah, yeah." Cyrus leaned back, hands behind his head, as Lex handed Lionel a cup of coffee. "See, here's the deal, old man. I have to be fully conscious in order to do the tricks. Drug me, and I'm useless, and will probably go crazy again. Kill me, and all you get is a body. No one knows how the brain works these things. Blackmail me, and with what? Piss me off -- " Cyrus snapped forward, his eyes going deadly -- "And you get this."  
  
Lionel went down with a hoarse cry, clutching at his chest.  
  
"Dammit," Lex said, "I asked you not to do that on the rug! The coffee is never going to come out."  
  
Clark was suddenly present, a towel wrapped not quite completely around his waist. "What happened? Are you all right?"  
  
Lionel caught one glimpse of a nearly-naked Clark, and fainted.  
  
Lex and Cyrus eyed Clark in his state of confused undress, and broke up. "He's fine," Lex gasped in between snickers. "He's just got a dirty mind, and you pretty much finished the scenario. William, I didn't know you could do that without touching him. Hahahaha!"  
  
William was pale from the effort and working for breath, but still couldn't help snickering with each dragged-in bit of air at the effect of Clark's appearance in a towel about five sizes too small. "It's ... not easy," he panted. "But he was already so mad ... it just took a little push ... oh lord, Clark, don't move so fast unless you're wearing solid clothes!"  
  
Clark looked down at himself and blanched. He disappeared again.  
  
Lex laughed so hard he fell to his hands and knees for the first time in his life.  
  
Cyrus recovered first, though every time he and Lex met each other's eyes they both started snickering again. "Clark ... oh, geez. Are the video monitors back on line yet?"  
  
"I'll check." Lex sucked in his self-control. "Don't want the guards seeing his disappearing act. But what I wouldn't pay for the recording ... oh god, the towel...."  
  
Cyrus wiped tears of hilarity from his eyes. "Blackmail material for years to come."  
  
"That I could actually use." Lex sighed. "That dear old dad over there couldn't exploit. Unless he wants the Kent farm, and what for? He can grow corn and milk cows about as well as I can make coffee. Even his employees usually suck at it. Remind me to tell you about his various disasters with the meteorite experiments."  
  
"I'll do that." Cyrus frowned. "There's something else. You said you were having them taken away, but there was like ten pounds of the things at a souvenir stand when we got here. Your clean-up crew isn't paying very good attention."  
  
Lex gave him a Luthor look. "It isn't MY clean-up crew, it's the government's. Why are you surprised that the people who had to resort to fake documents to start a war, and come up with an idiotic phrase like weapons-of-mass-destruction to justify their seig-heil attempt to take over the world, are too stupid to check a souvenir stand? I'll put my people on it once they declare their "mission accomplished." I didn't want to tip my hand to the old man there too soon. Excuse me a minute."  
  
Clark came back wearing a t-shirt that was really too small for his shoulders any more, and some (very solid, if still too small) jeans, in time to see Lex bring a pitcher of water back from the kitchen and throw it on Lionel. "Rise and shine, dad." Clark blinked. Okay, so Lana had done that to him once when Pete had knocked him cold -- it still wasn't something you ever expected to see done to a Luthor, especially not to Lionel, not even by Lex.  
  
Lionel, to his credit, didn't even splutter, not even at the ruin of his suit. He blinked and sat up, with a shake of his head to settle his hair into place. "Well. I had intended to speak to you about certain other of your more questionable expenditures, but it appears that you're back to your old misadventures. I doubt that you're in any shape to discuss business."  
  
Lex settled himself in the most expensive chair of the room, heedless of his undress, forcing Lionel to pick something second-best. Third-best, actually, since Cyrus was on the sofa. "Whatever gave you that idea, dad? We can discuss anything you want over some kind of brunch. Clark, if you'd do the honors? There ought to be something in there that you feel like eating. A little plain toast might help settle your stomach."  
  
A clear invitation to leave the room, so that Lionel maybe would be tempted to speak more freely. Lionel wouldn't know about the hearing capability. Clark nodded. "I think I can handle bagels. Would you like some more coffee, mister Luthor?"  
  
Lionel glared. Lex hid a smirk. He hadn't realized Clark had learned to subtly twist the knife like that. "Clark's not feeling well?" Lionel challenged, rearranging himself.  
  
Lex shrugged. "We had a bit to drink last night." Clark had to leave the room before he lost control of his body language. Sheesh, Lex could lay it on thick in very few words.  
  
"And don't forget the marmalade!" Cyrus called after him, chortling inwardly at Lex.  
  
Lionel leaned forward. "I would prefer to discuss our business -- " a glance at Cyrus -- "under more private circumstances." And with more clothes on, he didn't say.  
  
Lex glanced lazily over at Cyrus. "I've offered William here a business proposition. It's only fair that he be here to get some idea of what he's in for."  
  
Lionel's eyes sharpened with avarice. If his son was acquiring not one, but two, superhuman talents.... The boy was far more resourceful, and more dangerous, than he had suspected when he had exiled his son to a small town to teach him some circumspection.  
  
"Very well. It's only fair to say that I disapprove of your deal with the senators."  
  
"Yes, I know. You prefer blackmail to bribery. But since you haven't been paying attention to politics lately, dad, you wouldn't know how passe that is. Half our so-called elected officials are felony thieves and murderers, and if they do get tossed from office they get a radio or TV gig. And the ones who can't be blackmailed are very difficult to bribe. John and Dennis could actually be quite useful allies some day. So I played the self-interest card. So sue me. I believe you're the one who taught me the philosophy of 'whatever works'."  
  
It intrigued Cyrus to see that Lionel could sit there, soaking wet, having been subjected to a heart attack (and a near-naked Clark, snort!), and discuss finances. If being raised by his series of foster parents had been unpleasant, Lionel had all the emotional involvement of a piece of granite. Clark was an idiot for having run from the family he had. It had gotten his attention that Lex felt the same way, and was too careful to say so.  
  
"What I question, son, is your rationale for expending your resources like that. It's not as if we had a lack of interests to turn senators towards."  
  
Lex waved a hand. "It's not as if we can't afford the senators. What's really your problem, dad?"  
  
Lionel turned a speculative gaze on their eavesdropper. Cyrus returned it, flickering his power over to the killing range. It would make him sick for hours, maybe days, to use it, but he would do it. Being in the same room with Lionel was making him sick already. But the cold silence in his eyes, promising silence in Lionel's heart if necessary, got the old man's attention.  
  
It was an obvious effort for Lionel to drag his gaze back from the overt deadly threat to the more subtle threat of his own son. "I believe you already know the answer to that."  
  
"No, I really don't. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Thank you, Clark." Lex accepted a cup of coffee and a plate with a bagel, elaborately fixed with whatever had been left over in his refrigerator. "Did you get something?" Playing the games, drawing out the hidden cards, the hidden information, pushing patience to the limits. Watch this, Lionel. I've learned your tactics well. And we are united against you now in ways you can't even imagine.  
  
"I had ... some toast. You're right, it helped a little." In fact, Clark had eaten everything in the kitchen that wasn't green and didn't make too much noise, listening in.  
  
Cyrus looked over at Lex's breakfast with interest. "Ew. If that's the kind of fish I think it is, I'd rather have some of Lex's coffee." A moment of absolute, challenging silence. "Did you get something for mister Luthor, Clark? Or would you like me to?"  
  
"Why don't we both?" Clark turned hard, unreadable eyes on Lionel. Only the two younger men knew what kind of energy Clark could channel with his eyes alone. Lionel had no idea how close he could have come to death in that moment with the wrong reaction.  
  
"I would appreciate that." Lionel leaned back, elegant in a soaked thousand-dollar suit. "But none of that fish, please. My son's tastes are still obviously on the ... eclectic side." He met Clark's eyes, something not many people who were not invulnerable themselves could have done. "And I would appreciate it if you would give us a few minutes alone."  
  
"Mi casa and all that," Lex said with deceptive unconcern. "You two boys probably don't want to watch the next few rounds anyway. There are some -- private issues."  
  
Lionel's sharp glance went unerringly to the drawer with the kryptonite. "If necessary, I can ensure it." His hands, resting casually on his thighs, went to his hips.  
  
Lex moved even faster than Clark could have at that point. What was left of his breakfast finished off the ruination of the rug as he dumped it out of the way to backhand Lionel. "Don't you ever say anything like that again." Lex was too mad to curse. "Don't you even THINK that again. You think William hurt you? I will have you tortured in ways I've been imagining since I was six. You wanted a nemesis, old man. You made one. Leave my friends alone. Or I can certainly ensure it."  
  
Lionel looked up thoughtfully, rubbing his jaw rather than the place Lex had hit him. "Threats, Alexander? Unwise. You may come to regret this, son."  
  
"Screw you, and your inheritance too. I'll tear this place to the ground and sell the stones before I let you hurt my friends or run my life again."  
  
"Hm." Lionel rose to his feet, carefully, but without showing any sign of weakness. "Between the three of you, no doubt you could. Clark could rip it apart, you could set up the sales contracts, and William could convince people to buy. Quite the team. But what would you do for your next act?" Lionel made a small dismissive gesture. "You have no strategy, son. When you are dealing with," his eyes roamed lasciviously, possessively, over Clark and Cyrus, "Power, then you need to plan your next moves more carefully."  
  
Lex gritted his teeth. "My mistake. Does he have it on him, Clark? William?"  
  
Clark went to x-ray and gulped. Dammit, as all his more-than-human friends and teachers had been telling him, he really was going to have to learn to pay attention. It was sheer luck that he had been mostly out of range, and no wonder, besides the emotional tension, that he felt a little queasy around Lionel. "Left front pocket. In an envelope. It's small."  
  
"William? Would you please relieve my father of his little bargaining chip, such as he believes it to be?" Lex's eyes turned glacial. Cyrus marveled. Was Lex a psi talent after all? "And his watch, and ear plug, and cell transmitter -- it's usually in the tie clip -- while you're at it. You have my full permission to touch him."  
  
"My pleasure." Cyrus sauntered over, relishing the sudden frozen fear pouring out of Lionel only because it was so much worse for Lionel. It wasn't going to be a pleasure at all. It already hurt like hell. The flicker of power that he used to send Lionel to the floor made his own vision go to gray swirls and sparkles with Lionel's reaction to his touch. And he was going to have to make an appointment with a dentist very soon.  
  
The glowing green chip was the size of a domino. And pure. Refined. Not what he would have called small, in Clark's place. "You want this, or should I take care of it?"  
  
Lex was looking at Clark, thoughtfully, evaluating the pale expression. Which would Clark distrust more? If Lex ordered it buried -- destruction was not an option, burning simply released the deadly molecules into the atmosphere -- then it was out of his control. But if he kept it, then it would be an all-too-deliberate signal to Clark of his personal interest.  
  
To hell with it. He already had demonstrated his own high card. "Put it over there on the desk, please, William. Next to the computer. I'll have to call the locksmith to get the drawer and lockbox open. I did some damage to them, I'm afraid."  
  
Clark breathed out. "I can open them. If you can -- lock them again." I trust you.  
  
Lex accepted all the implications of that with a small bow of the head. "I'd rather leave it to the professionals." He looked up again, eyes glinting. "It's not as if I can't afford them. But if you're looking for summer employment, I have a few tasks you could do around here in the meantime." His eyes shifted to Lionel, who had managed to get back into his seat, though no longer looking quite so debonair. "No doubt my father's chauffeur has gotten bored with just sitting in the car and is wandering the grounds. If you could assist the security team in locating whatever he's accidentally dropped? Don't get too close to them, though. They're likely booby-trapped. Get Stan to do it, he's bomb-squad trained."  
  
An excuse to get out of the room while that thing was still sitting out in the open. Clark nodded. "I always wanted to meet your security people anyway." He vanished.  
  
Lex sat back, staring his father down. Cyrus hovered protectively over the green chip on the desk for appearances, waiting for the chance to sneak it into his pocket. "You see, dad, I'm learning about dealing with -- " a flick of the finger in Lionel's direction -- "Power. Thank you for the reminder in strategy. And here's your lesson for the day: you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." Lionel and Cyrus both snorted at that, for opposite reasons. "Having powerful allies is preferable to having powerful enemies."  
  
Lionel leaned forward, controlled, but clearly unnerved. "They're dangerous, son."  
  
"So am I. So are you. So is practically everyone we deal with on a daily basis."  
  
Lionel frowned. Lex obviously didn't understand. "They're *different*."  
  
Cyrus went cold and shaky at the blaze of emotion from Lex, though the only thing the young man showed was a slow smile. That had been exactly the wrong thing to say.  
  
Lex ran a hand over his smooth head. "So am I, dad," he said softly. "And that's why I'll win everything, in the end. Because I know all about being different."  
  
Cyrus looked at Lex admiringly. To take an intended insult and make it the game point was something even his more-than-human teachers couldn't often do.  
  
Lionel made his way to his feet. None of the fury building in him showed in his face, but Lex was no more fooled than Cyrus. "This isn't over, son. I came here hoping to talk sense into you, perhaps deal with you. Instead I find you in this -- arrangement."  
  
Lex didn't bother to stand, simply steepled his fingers under his chin and peered up. "We haven't come to any arrangement yet, dad. After all, Clark and William are still legally minors. Not eligible for full-time employment." That blaze of icy fire again, stunning Cyrus with the depth of his anger even as Lionel goggled at such a mundane statement. "And so is Chloe Sullivan. I doubt you put your contract with her in writing. I wonder what she would be willing to tell the federal authorities about your -- deal, as it were, with an underage girl."  
  
Lionel took two steps towards Lex and caught himself. "You. Wouldn't. Dare."  
  
Lex had not moved. "Actually, dad, I already have."  
  
And that was a lie, Cyrus could tell, because Lex had been waiting to ask Clark just how completely Chloe had betrayed him before involving her in the Luthor web of control and deceit and destruction. That Lex now held the upper hand over Chloe and Lionel both was probably the only reason she was still alive. You catch more flies with honey. You get more information and cooperation from the living than from the dead.  
  
Lionel looked like he was about to be sick. Cyrus could almost sympathize. "You ... we could still work together. We could achieve far more success over our common enemies if we weren't always in such opposition to each other."  
  
Lex made a dismissive motion. "When you decide who our common enemies are, dad, then let me know. Your track record there so far hasn't been impressive." He stood suddenly. "Until then, while the game might not be over, I have a knight and a bishop. And you don't. Check. Your move. But if you try to make it more than a game, dad," eyes glinting suddenly deadly, and Cyrus was impressed again, "If you want to really match your big guns against mine, then I also have a nuclear bomb."  
  
Lionel looked like a man in love. Cyrus wanted to throw up at the wave of avarice. "Clark is that powerful?"  
  
Lex gave him that slow, lazy smile that would have made a shark back off. "The picture you have of him picking up the tractor with one hand is three years old. He's grown. And you should pray that you never find out what else William can do." A bluff, and the truth, at the same time. Cyrus decided he could probably learn as much from Lex as he had from the Baron.  
  
"The possibilities...." Lionel's voice trailed off, dreamily, visions of Caesar and Mengele dancing in his head. It was all Cyrus could do to keep from TOUCHING Lionel again. "Son, don't you see the things we could do with them?"  
  
"I know exactly what I can do with them." Lex's nod to Cyrus was courteous, but his voice could have shattered stone. "I can keep them as friends. And hope that they want to stay friends with me. Despite having to deal with you as part of my life. Because if you force me to choose between you, dad, you will lose."  
  
Clark, who had been keeping an eye and what he could of an ear on the conversation while pointing out the scattered listening devices to an amused and enthusiastic security team, closed his eyes. Lex had chosen. To value their old friendship, even over his own family. After all the lies, he was offering Clark trust. Even protection. Lex had just handed Clark ... everything.  
  
"Take your dogs and go home, dad. Next time you want to discuss a business proposition, send me an e-mail." He turned away, ignoring Lionel so completely that he missed the splutter, though Cyrus didn't. (When Cyrus imitated it for Clark and Lex later, Lex laughed so hard Clark had to hold him upright.) "If you'll excuse me, I have a business to run. William, is there any more coffee?" His voice got lighter as they went into the kitchen together, leaving Lionel gaping at the idea of his son dismissing him.  
  
Cyrus paused in the act of pouring them both some morning brew. "He isn't going to give up, you know. Were you serious about, well, a job offer? Somewhere down the line?"  
  
Lex tilted his head at him. The temptation to play with his head, the way he had with Clark's, lasted only for a second. Here was a kid who had been through as much as he and Clark had, and knew what to do with it. "You can tell when someone is lying when you touch them, correct?"  
  
Cyrus waved a hand. "That's right, you still don't know the full story. I'm an empath as well as a healer. There are stronger empaths and healers, but nobody else as good at both. I can spot a lie from across the block. I knew about Clark without even touching him."  
  
"That would be a very useful asset in a business associate, you know." Lex's eyes glittered, and Cyrus shivered. Lex was BLOCKING him. Was everyone in Smallville a mutant? "How are you doing that? Only another psi can shut me out like that. And I didn't feel any of the talent in you earlier." Thoughtfully, "Then again, I didn't catch that Jonathan Kent was a mind reader until I touched him."  
  
That astonishment broke Lex's control. "Jonathan Kent can read minds?"  
  
"Well, no, not much. He's a, what we call, a residual, low sensitivity. Plus he burned out from not being trained. I went insane, he took up farming. You...." Cyrus hesitated, held out his hand. "Can I touch you? To read. Not to hurt, I promise."  
  
Lex considered him for what seemed a long time. Then he held out his hand.  
  
Bright and dark and desire and pain and deeply buried love and hatred and wild violence and furious defenses and fireworks and ocean depths and WILL.... Cyrus doubled over, gasping. "Oh. God. That's where ... the wall... comes from."  
  
"So what's the verdict? Am I a telepath and don't know it?"  
  
"Not ... even close. You're ... it's all ... intensity. Projection. Emotion. Power."  
  
"Well." Lex turned to his coffee, to hide the raw naked disappointment and need. Dammit! Clark and William, both his to command if he chose, if he so much as asked, but no special abilities of his own. "I am a Luthor, after all. Power is what it's all about."  
  
"Do you have ... any idea ... what that ... really means?" Cyrus was getting his control back, but Lex was blocking him again. Without even trying to, apparently. Cyrus was almost as scared of Lex's unconscious power as he was of Lake's. Lex out of control....  
  
"To command minions to my bidding?" Lex's voice was sardonic. "Of course."  
  
Cyrus closed his eyes. "Clark, would you come in here? We need to ... explain something to Lex. Stay on the other side of the room from me." A glance up at Lex. "I put the chip in my pocket until the locksmiths could get here. Didn't want Lionel to try to snatch it back if we were distracted by something."  
  
Lex accepted that, eyes still slightly narrowed. "I saw you pick it up. I wondered if you would admit to it. What you intended to do with it. If there would have been ... consequences." He pushed the thought away and used a sip of coffee as an excuse to change the subject. "Clark can hear you?"  
  
"Well, he can get the gist of it. If I concentrate on sending. That's not my talent. But Clark and I are ... linked. From way back. I was here when he, you know, came to us."  
  
"When his spaceship landed." Lex nodded in confirmation. "So was I. A meteor hit not a hundred meters from me. That's what caused," he ran a hand over his head, "this."  
  
Clark was standing in the doorway. Lex hadn't seen him yet, and Cyrus carefully kept his eyes directed to Lex's face. "So maybe you're linked to him somehow, too," Cyrus said, as if seriously speculating, trying to distract Clark from his nearly compulsive guilt.  
  
Lex smiled. "You just said I had no kind of psychic talent." He turned. "But yes, I remember the child who reached out to me that day. Come on in, Clark."  
  
Cyrus backed away, putting distance between him and Clark. "I said that you had power, Lex. Power, the way knowledge and weapons are power. Power to create, power to destroy. It's not a psi talent. It's not physical strength. It's something unique. I don't mind telling you that it's also something frightening. How did you know Clark was behind you?"  
  
Lex raised an eyebrow. "I learned very young to keep track of my surroundings."  
  
"And how many other people do you think learn to do that so well? Ever?"  
  
"How many other people are Luthors?" Lex countered. "You don't survive in my world without watching and being aware and careful of...." His voice trailed off. "Oh. Knowledge. Weapons. What constitutes my ... power. That's ... very insightful, William."  
  
"I learned the hard way." He flashed a grin in Clark's direction. Thanks to you and your friends. "What you're born with, and to, isn't the limit of what you can become."  
  
Clark smiled and nodded back, though it made him a little dizzy, even from across the room. "I'm ... only starting to get it, Lex. But it seems like something worth learning."  
  
Lex looked back and forth between them, bemused. "Coming from you two, that's quite a compliment."  
  
"Power isn't something to be proud of, Lex. Only how you use it is. If you were born with a talent for engineering, and you chose to make bombs instead of spaceships, would you be proud of that?" Cyrus inclined his head towards Clark. "No offense to your ancestors, Kal-El."  
  
Lex's expression sharpened. "Kal-El? Any relationship to what you said earlier? That odd language that a Smallville teenager shouldn't have any reason to know? Jor-El?"  
  
"Oops. Sorry, Clark. I thought you'd told him about your parentage and the screwed-up computer, especially after the box episode."  
  
Clark sighed. "We really hadn't had a chance to do more than vent. You and Lex ought to get along great, you both think faster than I can keep up with. Right now, anyway. Bill, can you put that thing somewhere else for awhile? Maybe it's just the lack of sleep and something I ate and watching Lex having to deal with his dad, but I'm not feeling real well."  
  
Lex said an unsophisticated word and bolted to catch Clark when he sagged back against the doorway. Cyrus started towards him too, reflexively, and repeated Lex's curse as he stopped himself. "I forgot. The crap is cumulative. Radiation poisoning. You got any place else I can put this thing?"  
  
Lex nodded, cradling a half-conscious Clark. "Upstairs, third room on the right, top drawer in the armoire. It's got enough metal in it to block most of the radiation."  
  
"Enough metal" turned out to be sixty or seventy cases of bullets. Cyrus was fairly pale himself when he came back down. "And you have that stash for why, exactly?"  
  
Lex did not appear to be exerting any effort to hold the Kryptonian down in his lap by resting two fingers on his forehead. His eyes met Cyrus', pure steel. "Against possible future necessity. Part of being a Luthor. Would you care to go through the scenarios?"  
  
"About as much as Clark would. Kal? You okay?" Cyrus knelt beside them. "Need a hand?" The offer of a healer's hand was a little more than the phrase usually implied.  
  
"I'm fine," Clark murmured, accepting Lex's touch on his head as if it were a kitten pushing its nose against him. "Just tired. There's so much ... so much change...."  
  
"You should try three months in schizophrenic dissociation. Relax, my friend. I promise you, you're safe now." His eyes met Lex's, a direct challenge. The message passed between power and power: Clark is not to be used. Hurt him, and I will kill you.  
  
Lex nodded, accepting the demand. "You're safe right where you are, Clark." And so are you, Cyrus. Anyone who tries to hurt either of you will answer to Lex Luthor.  
  
Cyrus felt that as if it had been written across the sky. His real smile lit the room. "You're amazing. What's it like, to have that kind of power?"  
  
"Please." Lex made himself sound bored. "It's nothing, compared to what you can do. Or him." Lex nodded to the head in his lap.  
  
"Not true, Alexander." Cyrus frowned. "Your power is the control of nations, the dreams of kings. Clark and I are -- well, it's different. More, well, what we are, than who we are. You knew Clark was from another planet, right?"  
  
"He did sort of give me that impression," Lex said dryly.  
  
"Did you know the planet exploded? That his own ancestors were the ones who created the planet-cracking bomb? That's what caused the meteorites. That he's the only one left? No one else made it off."  
  
Lex felt a glacier crawl up his spine. "No. I didn't know. Clark -- Kal-El? -- is the last of his whole -- his whole -- species? World?"  
  
"The last. The only." Cyrus leaned back with a sigh. "In all the whole freaking galaxy, under a hundred million suns, there isn't anyone else like him."  
  
Lex swallowed. The awful emotions that washed through him at that gave him a taste of what the meteor sickness must be like, pain and horror and sick helplessness. "Clark." A careful touch to the head. "I'm so sorry."  
  
Clark lifted a hand tiredly. "Don't. Even the Luthors can't take the blame for that one."  
  
Lex mock-glared at him. "Oh, believe me, I'll find a way. I no longer plan on ruling the world. I'm going to rule the galaxy. Move over, Buck Rogers and General Hammond."  
  
"You do NOT watch the sci-fi channel."  
  
"Every night, right after Comedy Central. I get more honest news that way than from the corporate-owned mainstream media. Plus it drives dear old dad crazy."  
  
Cyrus and Clark looked at each other. Clark moved his head back and forth in disbelief. Cyrus fell back laughing. Lex could dead-pan better than even the Baron. Oh, geez, the thought of Lex and Baron John together.... The world wasn't safe.  
  
"Right, I almost forgot." Clark sat up. Lex marveled again at his recovery speed. Clark had to be flat exhausted just from the strain of admitting who -- what -- he was. Never mind the gallon of alcohol and the lethal remnants of his....  
  
His home. His world. His place. No one and nothing left, except the cruel irony of bits and pieces that were deadly for him just to be near.  
  
What must it be like, to be so much stronger than anything on the planet, to think that a polar bear or an orca could be a playful companion that you still had to be careful not to hurt, to consider a machine gun a minor nuisance? Damn, he really wanted to change places with Clark, even if only for a day. Well, okay, a year. But no, not a lifetime. For all the vicious training to be a Luthor, he didn't think he could handle being so totally, forever, alone.  
  
Clark had to live with that. For all his perfect Norman Rockwell adopted family, Clark could never be anything other than totally, forever, alone.  
  
Lex fought very hard not to hold Clark close and let embarrassing tears fall.  
  
"Your dad's "driver" left some stuff in the front hall, too. I didn't want to get near it, for some stupid reason, you know? You were right about the booby traps. Of course, you're always right about everything, though I bet you didn't think Stan would say some of those words out loud. And the new TV probably comes pre-bugged. According to him, anyway."  
  
"Hm." Lex pretended to look concerned. "I'll have to speak to my people about being a bad influence on a minor. Bad for the image. After I've worked so hard to keep from being ridden out of this town on a rail."  
  
Cyrus felt like he had been whipsawed by the emotion storm between Clark and Lex. And yet Lex was just letting it go, like an unimportant business deal. He stared at Clark, eyebrows crawling into his hairline in a confused question. "Are all Luthors insane?"  
  
Clark shook his head. "You'd know better than I would. But yeah, I think Lex is definitely a nutcase. You think the purple silk underwear is weird? He buys purple POTATOES, for pity's sake."  
  
Cyrus collapsed in laughter. Clark joined him, falling on his face. Only Lex. 


	4. And Then There's the Girls

That's What Friends Are For  
  
Clark decided that he'd avoided home long enough. Avoiding had become far too easy a habit, and had far too high a price in the end.  
  
And there was still Chloe to talk to. Oddly, the thought of making his apologies to Lana didn't bother him nearly as much as how he was going to try to regain Chloe's trust or acceptance, or even if he was worth her trust again.   
  
He'd once thought he loved Lana more than anything, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. In a very real sense, it had been a kind of lifetime ago. He had been terrified of her finding out about his differences -- she'd never exactly kept her opinion of "freaks" a secret. He had been certain that she would push him away if she thought he was to blame for the meteors that killed her parents. She was obsessive to the point of psychosis on the subject of the meteors and the loss of her parents, as if her whole life would have been some magical fairy tale otherwise.  
  
Clark had never thought of that as a weakness before. He'd figured it to be his duty to cater to her feelings of abandonment. He wanted to pretend that it made a bond between them, both of them inexplicably orphaned, neither of them ever quite fitting in.  
  
Then he'd learned about Cyrus, and a great many others who had gone through far worse hells than Lana was even capable of imagining. Cyrus had nearly died himself, and had been sent to a series of foster homes totally unable to cope with an unusual child at all, much less someone who couldn't explain why other people made him so crazy. Cyrus had had no stability in his life, no help, and very little in the way of love. That he had finally managed to come back from ranting lunacy and catatonic shock was a tribute to his strength of character.  
  
Yet Cyrus didn't blame Clark for also being Kal-El, didn't think of the meteor storm as any worse than a thousand other purely Earthly disasters, didn't obsess on anything at all. (Well, except maybe for that really weird request for a purple shirt. Ew. Lex was right, that would be a terrible color on him.) Cyrus had spent most of his life haunted by Kal-El's memories, not even certain of who and what he was himself. And still he accepted Clark, all and everything about him, as a friend.  
  
Clark decided he needed a better yardstick to judge people's pain by than Lana.  
  
He slowed to a normal human jog, then to a walk, then to a dead stop as he reached the porch leading into his once-upon-a-time home. Deep breath. It didn't hurt quite as much as it had yesterday, but he was pretty sure it would never feel anywhere near normal again. "Mom? Dad?"  
  
Martha turned from her search of the refrigerator, and the sparkle in her eyes was just short of tears. "Hi, honey. Have you had breakfast?"  
  
Mom would be a good yardstick. "Um, well, yeah, I actually cleaned out most of Lex's leftovers. We had, kind of a long discussion. And Cyrus showed up. And Lionel." And I am not going to tell her about the rum. Some secrets are meant to stay buried. "And we, well, came to an understanding. Of sorts. Mom, is dad around? This might be easier to tell you both at once."  
  
"He's washing up. We were just waiting on you. We figured we had some ... things to discuss, too." She motioned into the next room. "You have company."  
  
He flicked to x-ray before he could stop himself. Chloe. And Lana. Sitting on opposite ends of the couch. Oh, no.  
  
Once, that would have been an invitation for him to sit companiably between them. Now, it looked more like undisguised hostility. He closed his eyes, grateful that he couldn't see through his own eyelids.  
  
"I guess I asked for it. May as well get it all over with at once."  
  
"Clark. Son. Don't be that way. It isn't the end of the world." Martha left the snack tray she was putting together to hug him. "I know it's hard for you. But you're old enough now to understand that nothing stays the same. You can handle this, too."  
  
Clark tried to hold himself still so that she wouldn't feel the tightness in him. End of the world. Bad choice of phrases, mom. I've already been through too many ends of the world to keep track. "I know, mom." Softly.  
  
The hard hand on his shoulder was reassurance made solid. "Come on, son." Jonathan's blue eyes were as warm as the summer sky. "I'll do all the talking, if you want."  
  
Clark straightened. Damn if his dad didn't always know exactly the right thing to say to get his attention. Jonathan could push his buttons almost as well as Cyrus. "Thanks, dad. But it's mine to tell, and to take responsibility for."  
  
Jonathan held his gaze. "Responsibility, yes. Blame, never. Remember that."  
  
Martha gave them both a light shove. "Shoo, you two, and let me finish this."  
  
Clark and Jonathan exchanged glances, and both managed a small smile. "They probably shouldn't be eating anything when I say "spaceship."  
  
Clark and Jonathan found seats across from the girls. That would leave Martha to sit between them and play diplomat. Clark wondered how he could ever have not realized how special his parents were, to put such subtle shields around him. "Well. Where do we start?"  
  
"You can start by telling us why you lied to us all these years, Clark. Why didn't you trust us? Why didn't you trust ME, when you claimed to love me?"  
  
Clark steeled himself and met Lana's eyes. "Would you even have wanted to be friends with a freak, Lana? I wanted you to get to know me, Clark, the boy next door, before you found out I was different. I hoped maybe then you could accept me for what I am. But once you started wearing that necklace, I couldn't even get close enough to you to carry on a conversation, much less develop any kind of relationship. So I had to lie to you. Pretend to be normal. Because I couldn't stand for you to look at me, think of me, talk about me, the way you did about all the other meteor freaks."  
  
Martha came in with the snacks and set them down on the table between them, but rather than take the remaining seat, she came to stand behind Clark and rest her hands on his shoulders. Clark had never thought that he would appreciate such physically fragile support before. He could toss a tractor, but his mother's love could move mountains.  
  
"Why do those meteorites hurt you so badly, Clark?" Chloe's voice was quiet anger, barely masking long-controlled pain. "I know the green ones make you sick as a dog. I suspect the red ones do the same thing to your head. But why you, and none of the other meteor freaks? They get stronger from the radiation, not weaker."  
  
"Is that what you told Lionel?" he challenged levelly. Hopefully. "That I'm a meteor freak?" He hated hurting Chloe any more, but maybe, once they had it out, it would lance the festering wound.  
  
"I told the bastard that you were bizarrely strong and fast and good at math, and unreliable and a jerk and would sell out your best friends. Seems he got some confirmation of that from independent reports of several of your own stunts. I told him you were a sneak and a liar. I didn't tell him about the school rings or what a real prick you turned into when you put one on, though you didn't exactly keep that a secret yourself. I told him it probably wouldn't be a good idea to piss you off. He laughed and said "don't worry about that." I told him you'd been a total a-hole the day you blew up your storm cellar, and that obviously you'd been planning to do it." Her voice broke. "I didn't tell him why."  
  
Clark absorbed that in silence, trying not to give anything away as his eyes flickered from her face to his feet, though Martha and Jonathan were hard put to keep their expressions neutral. "And you knew why?"  
  
"Clark. Or whatever your real name is. I may be a latecomer to farmville, but I've been in storm cellars before. They don't usually come equipped with what looks like a miniature version of an experimental fighter jet." The flashing emotions that chased through her face despite her set jaw hurt him just to watch, until she fought them back to steadiness. "Answer the question, Clark. Why do the meteorites drop you in your tracks the way they don't anyone else?"  
  
Clark glanced up at his mother, over at his father, a silent plea. Both nodded. Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, and Clark held up his hand and nodded back. He could do this.  
  
"The miniature experimental fighter jet," he spared a moment of amusement for Chloe's description, "is a spaceship. I came here, to this solar system, to Earth, to Smallville, in it, when I was about two. The meteors that came with me are pieces of the planet I was born on. The planet exploded. Some kind of giant nuclear bomb. The explosion turned what was left of the planet radioactive. The radiation is dangerous to humans, mutagenic, but it's lethal to me. Hurts just to be anywhere near it. Like it's ripping my guts out." Deep breath.   
  
"I don't know why. Matches my chemistry or something." He fought an insane urge to giggle hysterically. "Is that ironic enough for you, Chloe? The only thing left of my home world, the only souvenir I have of the planet I come from, will kill me just to be around it."  
  
Lana was so white that Martha thought about going for the smelling salts. No, Clark needed her more right now. Jonathan met Chloe's eyes, daring her to think about what she was going to say next, and what the consequences might be.  
  
Clark waited through an awful minute of dead silence, even everyone's breathing barely audible, even to his acute hearing. Finally the tension got to be too much for him, and he stood, offering his hand to Chloe as if in introduction. "And the name I was born with," he shifted accent and pronunciation automatically, "is Kal-El."  
  
Chloe stared at him for another nerve-wrenching minute. Then she fell back on cushions and slid to the floor, hooting with laughter. "Pleased to meet you, Kal-El," she gasped, in between snorts. "You know what?" More laughter. "You look an awful lot like this boy I know." She tried to lift her hand to take his, and failed, hands falling back to hold onto her sides. "Name's Clark Kent. You could be brothers. Twins even."  
  
Lana frowned, and Martha was relieved to note that her color was returning. She was dealing with it. "Chloe, what's so funny?"  
  
"Oh." Chloe leaned back against the bottom of the couch, exhausted from laughing. "What's not funny? This guy is claiming to be from another galaxy. Clark has pulled some fast ones on us, but this takes the cake."  
  
"Solar system, not galaxy," Clark said grumpily. "You made a deal with me, Chloe. I promised not to lie to you. It kind of ruins everything if you don't believe me."  
  
Chloe calmed down. "I believe you, Clark Kal-El Kent. It fits too many of the pieces. And there's hardly any reason for you to make up something so crazy when you could have just claimed to be a run-of-the-mill Smallville freak. It's just that, aren't aliens from other galaxies -- sorry, solar systems -- supposed to look like giant bug-eyed monsters? With tentacles and insect heads and all? Why don't you look like an alien, Kal-El? Why do you look like the boy next door? Or is that a disguise?"  
  
Clark raised his hands in supplication. "How should I know? I was a little kid when I was sent -- away. Here. Maybe I was altered. Maybe humanoid beings are common. Maybe Terrans settled Krypton. Or vice versa, though that's not likely, or you'd be more like me. I mean, like what makes me different. As far as I know, though, this is how I look."  
  
"He looked like a little boy when we found him," Martha added softly, rubbing her thumbs in gentle circles on his neck. "When he found us. A lost little boy who needed a home." Clark fought back the burning in his eyes and put a hand up to cover hers.  
  
It surprised all of them when Lana spoke. "Are there any others like you?" There was fear plain in her voice, but also something unexpectedly like concern. "Any ... survivors, of -- what did you call it? Krypton?"  
  
Clark took his hand away from his mother's to keep from accidentally breaking anything. The hard knot inside him that had grown since he first realized his differences, that had solidified for all time when Dr. Swann told him there was only one message, kept him from answering for a long few seconds. It took all his strength to force a breath. "No."  
  
Jonathan rose to come stand beside Martha, adding the grip of his strong hands to hers, knowing his adopted son could barely feel it, but knowing he couldn't do anything else. "I know it won't ever be enough, son. But this is your home. Jor-El and Lara loved you enough to give you up, give you a life, give you to us. Don't ever think less of them for that. Don't ever think you were abandoned. They wouldn't want you to feel ... alone."  
  
Chloe and Lana spoke simultaneously. "No." They looked at each other, and the hostility between them changed, a nearly chemical reaction, to something more like -- a dawning agreement? Jonathan and Martha watched them warily, cautiously optimistic.  
  
Chloe took the initiative. "No," she said again firmly as she stood. "You have friends, Clark. Kal-El. Whatever you want to call yourself. You're not alone." She moved around the table to stand in front of Clark and took her hand in his. "Those damn rocks aren't your home. We are."  
  
Lana followed her lead, taking his other hand. "We would always have been here for you, Clark. All you had to do was let us know you were hurting, and what we could do. You were always here for us -- why did you think it would only be one way?"  
  
Clark looked from one to the other, confused, relieved, frightened that he might be misunderstanding. His hands were frozen with the fear of hurting them. But when he tried to pull back, they both tightened their grips, refusing to let go. "You're not -- too mad at me? You don't think I'm a, a freak?"  
  
"Mad at you? Clark Kal-El Kent, I am mad enough to beat the living tar out of you, as soon as I figure out how to do it without breaking my fists. But you're my FRIEND. You've been my friend for YEARS. What, you didn't think friends ever had fights and made each other mad? That must be one cold unhealthy planet you come from."  
  
"Clark, I don't dislike freaks because they're different. I don't like them because they stalk me and try to KILL me! Ask any of the cheerleaders. Crazies follow some people around like we have a weirdo magnet, and most of the crazies aren't meteor mutants or anything, they're just I-want-to-feel-you-up-and-own-you sickos. I thought you were more of a freak when you were spying on me through your telescope but not talking to me in person than I do right now. If I had known why you didn't want to come near me...."  
  
"I'd call that telescope-peering pretty strange behavior myself," Chloe added. "Clark, you could have saved yourself and all the rest of us a lot of trouble if you had just told us." Her eyes darkened. "Trusted us."  
  
Deep breath. "Chloe, I do trust you. Always have. Though I did have nightmares sometimes about ending up on the front page. Can you blame me? I just ... wanted to be ... normal. Accepted. One of -- " his throat tightened. "You."  
  
The two girls looked at each other again. Clark couldn't read their expressions. He'd bet that even Cyrus couldn't. Female communication seemed to be a lot more complicated than Kryptonian.  
  
"Any reason why you still can't be?" Chloe asked, forced-casually.  
  
"Chloe -- " Suddenly impatient with their seeming inability to understand, Clark stood, vanished, and came back with the refrigerator balanced on one hand. "Sorry, mom, I'll plug it back in before anything spoils. Though I should probably clean out from under it first. Chloe, does this answer your question?"  
  
Chloe began giggling. Lana thought about for a second, and followed suit. "Yes, Clark, it does. You're carrying around a refrigerator on your fingertips and worrying about the food spoiling. That pretty much answers the question of whether you're an alien or one of us."  
  
"And thinking about cleaning out from under it," Lana snickered. "You sound like your mom. Could you come over and lift up our beds so we can find our missing socks?"  
  
Martha let out the breath she'd been holding and chuckled. "He's been doing that since he was six."  
  
"And using those muscles to change tractor tires," Jonathan added genially. "Not something he got from the spaceship's computer, I bet."  
  
Clark looked helplessly from one to the other. "You don't GET it."  
  
"Honey, of course we do. Now go put the fridge back. We can clean under it later. You're confused enough right now, and it would be a mess if you dropped it."  
  
Clark sighed in defeat. It didn't help that everyone started chuckling again behind his back when he absently shifted the refrigerator from one hand to the other reaching for the plug.  
  
One of them. Not at all like them, physically. But mentally? Thinking the same things they did, having the same emotions? Was that enough to be accepted as "one of them"? To be Normal?  
  
Would they let it be enough?  
  
Clark stood up from checking the plug, and it took a good proportion of his speed to keep from cracking the skulls of the two girls who had snuck up behind him. Both of them just laughed and put their arms around him, holding him close in hug of sympathy and friendship that demanded nothing of him.  
  
"We came to see if maybe there was some ice cream that needed eating before it melted," Chloe declared.  
  
"Looks like Clark has saved the ice cream from us," Lana pouted at the humming refrigerator.  
  
"Nah, I bet some of it melted while he was trying to find the plug. What about it, Mister Alien, got any candy for the little girls?"  
  
"Chloe! That's obscene."  
  
"Et tu, Lana? Takes a dirty mind to know one. Come on, Clark, I want to hear all about the growing-up-green thing, and if I don't have some caffeine, I need sugar."  
  
Clark bowed his head, his arms gently, ever-so-carefully around his very special friends. Friends who had accepted him, after everything that had gone so terribly wrong. His shoulders were trembling with the effort. Chloe and Lana looked up at him, worried. But when he finally managed to raise his eyes to meet theirs, the tears were balanced by the trademark Kent smile.  
  
"Mom? Do we have any coffee ice cream, or do I need to go get some, like, real fast, before Chloe beats up on me?"  
  
Martha and Jonathan were holding each other tightly, sharing silent thanks that their son was back, that his friends had accepted him, that he would no longer be so terribly alone. Martha turned from the desperate embrace long enough to call, "There's butterscotch and mint chocolate chip. If Chloe insists on coffee flavored, just don't break the sound barrier getting to Mr. Johnson's."  
  
Chloe's eyes widened. "Break the sound barrier?"  
  
"Butterscotch is fine with me," Lana put in hastily.  
  
"I'll, I'll settle for chocolate chip. For now. Sound barrier? Seven hundred fifty miles an hour? Clark...."  
  
Clark was quiet for a long time. They had not rejected him. He had promised not to lie. It was hard. But not anywhere near as hard as living a lie, as being alone. "I have to kind of watch that. It's...." He traced his fingertips up their shoulders, then locked his hands behind his back. "Being different ... sometimes it's not easy to remember ... what the limits are."  
  
The two girls considered him, working through the terrible secrets he had tried to come to grips with for most of a lifetime, and still wasn't certain of. Maybe girls were just faster on the uptake than he was. Because Chloe nodded, slowly, and Lana smiled.  
  
"You mean, like trying to figure out who to take to a dance?"  
  
"Or how to explain why you have to go run off and try to rescue everyone when you're supposed to be at a party?"  
  
"Or why people get mad at you when they know you're lying, but don't know why?"  
  
"Or why Clark Kal-El Kent can be the most infuriating person in the world one minute, and make you want to apologize for whatever you've said half an hour later?"  
  
"And that I -- we -- have made stupid decisions too, but we tried to learn from them, and do better next time? Those kinds of limits?"  
  
"Did it ever occur to you that whatever planet you came from, you're still a teenager? Maybe we should get you a subscription to some of the "what teenage girls want in teenage boys" magazines."  
  
"Mom would kill me!" And I REALLY hope dad didn't hear that comment.  
  
"Fine. Go ask Pete what kind of magazines HE keeps under his bed. Bearing in mind how many older brothers he has." Chloe hesitated. "Does Pete ... know?"  
  
Ulp. Clark turned away for a second, then forced his mostly-invulnerable body to look back at them. "Yeah. I ... had to tell him. He found the," a generic gesture, "spaceship."  
  
Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't broad smiles. "Fantastic! Now we really do have something to share. Oh, wait. Let's play a snark on the little sneak and not let on that we know. And see how much payback we can give him for going around behind our backs."  
  
"Pete was just trying to protect me. He didn't mean to do anything wrong by you. Don't blame him for keeping secrets. I'm the one who asked him to."  
  
"Clark," Lana said seriously, "We understand that you meant well. But not only did you lie to us, now we find out that Pete did too. How do you think that makes us feel? How would you feel if, oh, I had run off to Paris with Lex, and had told Chloe, and told her not to tell anyone else? Wouldn't that make you wonder if you could trust either of us with anything?"  
  
Clark blinked at her. "Coming from another planet isn't exactly the same as visiting another country."  
  
Chloe said two words that he would have sworn he would never hear. "Lana's right." An aside, under her breath: "Run off to Paris with Lex? Lana, that's sick." Deep breath. "Clark, Kal-El, whatever, it's not about whether you're a little gray man or whether Lana secretly speaks French. It's about whether we're friends, and if friends care about each other's lives."  
  
Clark looked back and forth between them, desperately wanting to believe, terrified of trying, wondering if he dared. "I want you as friends, Chloe. Lana. I need you as friends. Without you, I may as well just head off d be a stranger to the whole human race for the rest of my life. But that's not a burden I can put on you, or even ask of you. That's the weight I had to put on Pete, and wish I hadn't had to. That's what I mean by ... limits. I never wanted to lie. But I had to. I couldn't ... risk you."  
  
The two girls regarded him for a long minute, and then huddled closer to him, putting warm firm arms around him. If it hadn't been so absurd, he could have sworn that they were trying to protect him. "It's a burden, if you want to call it that," Lana said quietly, "that we're allowed to choose to accept."  
  
"The only thing you're allowed to try to hide from me, Clark Kal-El Kent, is your locker combination. Besides, I already know it."  
  
Clark choked back a laugh. "Would you stop that? You're likely to call me Kal-El in school some day. I'm still Clark. The same guy you've known since you tried to flirt with me in eighth grade."  
  
Chloe did laugh, remembering clearly how mad she'd been that day the cute boy in her new school that she had decided to get to know had thrown up on her during a field trip. She started to tease him in response about that inauspicious meeting, and then remembered something else. The meteor rocks, their odd veins of pretty, jewel-like, slightly glowing green, scattered throughout a trench nearby. She had been out to impress the boys with her athletic prowess by sliding down to retrieve a particularly large rock, and proudly presented it to her puppy love.  
  
She had skipped up and tapped Clark on the shoulder with a giggle and handed him five pounds of deadly poison.  
  
Chloe shivered. The wonder was that he'd ever forgiven her, not vice versa. "Yeah," she said softly, "You'll always be Clark. I'm ... sorry."  
  
"Don't do that either," Clark smiled. "You can't be sorry for things you aren't responsible for. I've had that beaten into my head a few times lately."  
  
"Beaten into YOUR head?" Chloe snorted.  
  
"Yeah. Ask Bill. It's a good thing he can heal the bones in his own hands."  
  
"Right, I remember," Lana chimed in. "He did that trick with Tyson. He can ... do things, too? Is he...?"  
  
"He's human. From Earth. But he's a freak, too. Does that bother you, Lana?"  
  
The girls looked at each other again, that incomprehensible female communication.   
  
"He doesn't strike me as the stalker type," Lana admitted.  
  
"He's an empath. It hurts him to even be around someone who's hurting. So if you think of him as weird, he'll be uncomfortable. Can you deal?"  
  
"So long as he likes ice cream," Chloe declared after two seconds' thought.  
  
"Bring some for us too, son!" Jonathan called.  
  
Martha smacked her husband. Clark wasn't supposed to know they'd been listening. 


	5. Cyrus Gets to Know Jonathan a Lttle Bett...

Okay, so this has gotten completely AU. Oh well. As much as I liked (some of) third season, I still have a hard time buying any of it. Besides, I STILL hate that stupid deus ex machina cave.  
  
Coming Back, and Coming Home  
  
"Thanks for the lift, Pete." Cyrus yawned.  
  
"No prob. Man, did you ever even get to sleep after we finished with Clark's barn? You look like one long bad party night."  
  
"Not far from it," Cyrus mumbled. He'd spent a serious fifteen minutes talking things over with Lex after Clark left, both of them cautiously feeling each other out after a very bad start. He'd finally ended up having to beg an hour's crash space and a ride back to Pete's place. He hadn't been through such a workout since his first days of coming back to sanity, and beginning to learn to deal with the talents for real.  
  
He was way astonished to find, after first impressions, that he both liked and respected Lex Luthor. The young magnate's ambition and drive and will scared him. But then, he'd been scared by the best. Lex fit right in with the things he'd had to go through to be trained, in his own way.  
  
Would he like to become Lex's silent partner? It was an incredibly tempting thought. He had thought he would have to be recruited into the shadowy world of covert espionage, where his healer talent would be put to some brutal use. The idea of using what he had to prevent some of that from happening in the first place had him already writing the first draft of his "thanks but no thanks" letter to the people who had saved what was left of his mind.  
  
Living in the Luthor mansion and going through occasional experiments -- like he already hadn't been through two thousand, seven hundred, and fifty eight -- wouldn't be so bad either, if he could convince Clark to stop by every once in awhile and warm up the damn cold stone walls and floor with his heat vision. (Lex had snickered that he'd bet the cats could bribe -- or threaten -- Clark into that.)  
  
"I had to make a real early morning visit to Lex," he passed off by way of explanation. "Clark had gone wandering. He ended up at the Luthor mansion. And you know how Clark gets when he goes wandering."  
  
"Careless," Pate agreed unhappily. "What did he get himself into this time?"  
  
"Well," Cyrus pondered. "He did have to tell Lex the rest of it."  
  
"Dammit." Pete's anger grated on Cyrus' broken teeth. Then he sighed, and let it go, mostly. "I guess he didn't have much choice. Sooner or later. Luthors are hard to fool. And I had to, you know, warn Lex what we might be facing."  
  
"It was the only choice, Pete. Kal on the red drug is unimaginably dangerous. He could have killed...." Cyrus' voice faltered, and Pete shivered in sympathy. Clark could have killed someone.  
  
Cyrus didn't bother to correct him. Pete didn't know the half of it. Cyrus hoped he never would. Any further out of control, and Kal-El could have racked up a body count to rival Lake's. And Lake had killed hundreds of people before she was five.  
  
"You helped bring him back, Pete," Cyrus said levelly. "That's what counts the most."  
  
Pete drove in silence for another two minutes, trying to deal with what, to his inexperience, felt like stabbing a buddy in the back. Cyrus didn't bother to correct him there, either. Cyrus had never had to betray a friend. But several of his teachers had. His own mentor was a more sensitive empath that he was, and had sent people to their death.  
  
"If it's any consolation," he offered, "I got to put the touch on Lionel."  
  
Pete's sudden grin lit up his face. "You mean like keeping him asleep?"  
  
"Oh, a little more than that, partner. Imagine what someone who can heal cells can do by reversing the flow."  
  
Pete imagined. He was no slouch in school. Pete's chocolate skin went pale yellow. "Can't say the bastard didn't deserve it," he muttered.  
  
"That he damn well did. He was carrying kryptonite around in his pocket, can you imagine?"  
  
"I hope you 'touched' him hard," Pete growled.  
  
"I wasn't exactly Florence Nightingale."  
  
"Pete! Bill!" Clark called cheerfully as they drove up. The two boys traded a relieved look. Clark seemed to be putting himself back together, at least a little. A little was better than nothing. "You're just in time for ice cream. If Lana and Chloe have left us any, that is."  
  
Oh, boy. "Lana and Chloe came by for ice cream?" Cyrus asked carefully.  
  
"Well, not exactly. But after I unplugged the refrigerator and carried it around the house, they figured they may as well eat it before it got soggy." The Kent grin was back, too, more or less.  
  
Cyrus' eyes went wide, but he was smiling as well. Pete settled for just the wide eyes. "You told them!"  
  
"Everything," Clark confirmed. "And they thought it made me less of a freak instead of more, can you believe it? Are girls that weird to guys from this planet too?"  
  
"Kal, even male telepaths don't understand women. Don't bother burning out any brain cells trying. But cool, I'm glad you're all here. I want to ask about working out something with Lex, and you four can probably give me the best arguments for and against. Or you six," he added, remembering the adults as Jonathan came out onto the porch. "Hi, Mr. Kent. I know you don't exactly like the Luthors, but I'm thinking of an alliance with Lex. I might be able to help him turn against Lionel and that crowd."  
  
Jonathan leaned on the porch railing. "It might be worth it," he admitted ruefully. "God knows Lex is as weird as a green chicken, but his old man is just plain rotten to the core. If there was some way...." He trailed off, and suddenly his knees buckled.  
  
Clark and Cyrus moved at nearly the same speed, and for someone born on Earth, that was hauling. Clark held his father up, and Cyrus caught his hand. "Uh-oh."  
  
"Bill, what is it? What's wrong with him?"  
  
Cyrus sighed. "You blew up the ship, right? Could it have reincarnated itself? Is there any other artifact where that damned recording is stored?"  
  
Pete beat Clark to it. "The caves. All those symbols. They could be masking some kind of computer. Or they could be some sort of programming themselves."  
  
Jonathan nodded tiredly, and Clark closed his eyes. "Yeah. It's a, Earth technology doesn't have the words to explain it. The rock has been altered to contain information at practically the atomic level. I don't know how they did it. It's supposed to have been there a long time. Hundreds of years. Or maybe the ship did it when it crashed, made a backup copy of itself. I don't know! I barely know enough about the planet I came from to be able to say a cuss word in the language."  
  
Cyrus said one for him, making Clark flush. Pete memorized it.  
  
"The description you're looking for is crystal nano-tech information storage," Chloe said, coming out on the porch with Lana behind her to see what the commotion was. "If you wouldn't skip science class so often, you'd know that. It's not exactly unknown here on this pitiful backwards planet, even if we haven't quite mastered it yet."  
  
Clark flinched. "Chloe, you know why I can't go in there sometimes."  
  
"Yeah, and trust me, I steered the Superfund team that way as soon as I had even the foggiest idea. Could have done it a lot sooner, if you had bothered to tell me what the problem was." There was still a hint of bitterness in her voice, and Cyrus, though preoccupied with Jonathan, looked up at her worriedly. "And besides, you could do some research online every once in awhile, you know? Or do you think us poor humans don't know anything worth your time?"  
  
"Chloe --" Pete and Clark spoke simultaneously, Clark pleadingly, Pete warningly.  
  
Lana cut off both of them, changing the subject with uncharacteristic deftness. "And, Clark, if you had ever even hinted that my necklace bothered you, it would have given me an excuse to get rid of it. I always secretly hated the thing. Aunt Nell kept telling me that I should always wear it "in memory of my parents." Screw that! Who needs a reminder of watching your parents killed? Of watching ANYONE killed! You know what?" She reached up with both hands and ripped off the tiny chain and locket she was wearing, and looked at it consideringly. "Not exactly the same thing, but it's the thought that counts." She wadded it up and threw it as hard as she could. "Take that, you manipulative old bat. I'm not your toy any more."  
  
She turned to Clark, who was still holding Jonathan's limp weight, and touched him lightly. "Clark, I'm so sorry. For everything. For ever doubting you. For ever pushing you. For ever hurting you. It's weird that it took finding out all the secrets I ever wanted to know to finally make me grow up and realize that it isn't really all that important. Mr. Kent, what can we do for you? Can I get you some water or something?"  
  
Cyrus let out a long breath. "I think I can handle it. But we need to be alone, away from everybody, for a little while. Kal, can you just carry him out to a quiet place and leave us alone for about half an hour?"  
  
Not "can you carry him," which would have been one of the top ten in the stupid questions category, but "can you leave us alone." Clark had to think about that one for three seconds at full speed.  
  
"Let's go." He lifted Jonathan gently. "Dad? Do you have a favorite place? Bill kind of works better with a cooperative subject."  
  
"You grew up here, son," Jonathan said fondly, fighting not to show the debilitating weakness. "What do you think?"  
  
Clark nodded. "I ... remember. Where you used to take me for those ... talks, when I was a little kid."  
  
"Yeah." Jonathan smiled, and closed his eyes.  
  
Cyrus met Clark's eyes in silent worry. He jerked his head, and Clark stood up, fast. "Chloe, Lana, can you tell mom? I'll be back in a minute."  
  
"We can cover that, Clark. Go." For the first time since he'd seen her, since coming back, Chloe's anger had been replaced by her old concern and confidence. Cyrus made a silent wish. Maybe he could bring Chloe back, too.  
  
Out in the quiet field, under the open sky, Clark laid Jonathan's shivering body on his shirt. "I'll be right back with a blanket, dad. Just," Clark gulped, working to keep his voice from breaking. "Hang in there, okay?"  
  
Cyrus stopped him with a raised finger. "It's okay, Kal. We'll be okay. But we need to be alone. You can watch. From a distance. But I need to concentrate."  
  
The alien blinked back tears. "Thanks, Bill. I just ... thanks."  
  
Cyrus turned back to Jonathan, keeping his psi-level healing power as high and hard as he could go without knowing exactly what he was fighting. "Okay, Mr. Kent, come clean. What exactly have you gotten in to? Did you actually try to download that AI yourself?"  
  
Jonathan sighed. "I was trying ... to find something ... to help Clark."  
  
Cyrus said a word he'd learned from Lex. "You're a psi-sensitive. And you knew that! With no damn training at all. Did you ever even stop to think that it could have burned your brain out completely? Or worse, that Jor-El's computer simulacrum could have taken over your mind, and made you a substitute? No, you wouldn't have known about that. But you had to have known that you could die under that kind of power. Gods, and I thought I was stupid just for trying healing, without knowing what I was getting into. I swear I should send you to John for training. He'd make a great experiment of the oldest full-psi known." Lex-word. "Breathe deep. Brace yourself. This is going to hurt."  
  
"Just let it go, son." Jonathan's voice was way past tired.  
  
"Shut up. Sir. Would you tell Kal not to pick up a tractor? Then quit giving advice when you don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to start by backtracking the download. Your choice here is whether to erase it or not. Erasing it will fix most of the damage. Your brain won't completely heal, but your body will."  
  
Jonathan took a careful breath. "Erasing it means I'll ... forget?"  
  
"Well, yes. Some things. You'll still be mentally whole. But the spaceship's input will have to go."  
  
"No."  
  
"Mr. Kent," Cyrus hesitated, "The damage to your neural system is pretty bad. Those damn so-called scientists expected everyone who came in range of their control systems to be as tough as Kal. We're, well, ants to them. Anyone without some rough mental training would have died just trying to pick up the transmission. Our own people had to go through a graduate semester, not to mention having the powers in the first place, before we were allowed to even try. That you survived it at all is pretty impressive." His face twisted. "Please don't ever tell Clark. But from what I've seen, I'm very glad his people are dead."  
  
"I won't," Jonathan said as steadily as he could, "let go of what I have. Clark is my son. If I have to trade ten years of my life to be able to say 'go do your homework' in his own language, I will."  
  
Cyrus almost snorted. That was a Kent, all right. "Mr. Kent, it's not 'his' language. Clark was raised here. Raised human. Raised as your son. The Kryptonian language was numerical-based, and very exacting. That's why he's good at math. But as for telling him to do his homework, farm language will be the best way to get his attention."  
  
Jonathan chuckled. Then his eyes drifted closed again. "No. I won't give up the input. I may need it someday. For my son."  
  
Cyrus let out a long sigh. "I am a trained empath, and under obligation to not violate someone else's will when I have asked, and been asked, for their cooperation. Therefore, Jonathan Kent, I am obligated to do as you request. I am a trained healer, and can only do what I am capable of, to the best of my ability. Do you consent to those terms of what I may or may not be able to do in order to assist you?"  
  
Jonathan gave him an uncertain smile. "Sounds like a medical oath."  
  
"Oh, it goes way more than that. What I said earlier about 'my own people,' -- they're not, really, except that every last one of them is weirder than Lex's cats. They saved my life and my sanity. They helped me realize my full potential. And they would kill me in a heartbeat if I did anything less than, or opposed to whatever, they demanded. I'm not making a joke here, mister Kent. I really want to fix you entirely. But if you refuse to lose the download, there's a limit to what I can do."  
  
Jonathan looked up steadily. "You're the empath, son. You tell me." With all the strength he had left, he closed his hand over Cyrus'.  
  
Sun and wind and land and rain and ... NO.  
  
No one will ever take Clark, anything about Clark, anything I can ever do for Clark, away from me. Not Jor-El. Not the meteor rocks. Not you. No one.  
  
Cyrus sighed and considered asking for a time out to go to the dentist.  
  
"Well, the whole world knows better than to try to out-stubborn a Kent. Brace yourself, mister Kent. I'm going to be shielding you from the worst of the pain, but having your cells restructured the second time around isn't going to be any easier than the first, even with a human doing it."  
  
"I don't imagine it's going to be easy for you, either, son. Do what you have to do. And don't worry about an old farm hand. If a little pain bothered me, I wouldn't even keep those damn chickens around."  
  
Cyrus laughed out loud. The image carried him, a little, through the deep, reaching merge that let him feel and touch and correct, cell by cell, what he could of the massive damage done to Jonathan's nervous system.   
  
Thank all the gods that the Baron had made each of them work through psychic blocking and channeling sessions against Lake's deadly mental weapons before trying to access the computer that called itself Jor-El. For all the knowledge they'd gained in the end, it was very much arguable if it would have been worth the price Jonathan had paid.  
  
Cyrus found himself in a limp heap staring at the sky, sick and exhausted and just about as happy as he'd ever been in his life. "Mm? Oh, hi, Kal."  
  
"You look like ten miles of I-40 under construction. Want me to carry you, or just drag you like a dead tree?"  
  
"I could use a hand. Your dad...?"  
  
"I'm here, son. Whatever you did, it did the trick. I feel like I'm twenty again."  
  
And that was a lie, both boys could tell, one with full-spectrum electromagnetic senses, the other with the power of a healer empath. But Jonathan was sitting up, smiling as he ran his hand through his hair.  
  
"Heh, I could carry you both stacked one on the other like cordwood. Chloe would take a hundred pictures. But then she'd never forgive me for busting her camera. Oops." Clark had just remembered that forcing the two of them back into physical contact probably wasn't a good idea right now. "Okay, who wants a lift home first?"  
  
"Take Jonathan," Cyrus said tiredly. "I think I want to lie here for awhile. But Jon...?" After going through the elder Kent's mind and body down to the DNA level, they were on a little closer than first-name basis.  
  
Jonathan, resting lazily in his alien son's arms, looked over at the mutant boy who had saved his life. "Yes, son? Name it."  
  
Cyrus moved his head back and forth. "Nothing. But for what it's worth -- I respect your decision. I ... would have done the same."  
  
Clark looked confused for a second, even though he had been listening in. (Except when Jonathan had started to scream. Clark had fallen to his knees, blocking his ears with all his strength, when Cyrus had gone to full power on his father's body.)  
  
Then Clark got it. "You ... you chose to...."  
  
"You are MY son. I will not give up anything I have of you."  
  
"Dad." Clark shuddered. "It wasn't worth ... you should have..."  
  
"You want me to hit you, son?  
  
Clark sighed. "Not until Bill recovers enough to fix your hand. There are lots of days I wonder about you humans. I don't particularly enjoy pain, myself."  
  
Cyrus raised a hand from where he lay. "Second the motion. Your point, Kal?"  
  
"It's ... you're ... it seems like you, I'm sorry, humans, go out of your way to get hurt. To take pain. Dad, you could have just let it go. Bill, I know it hurts you when other people are in pain, but you could just have left. Why do you do this?"  
  
The two humans looked at him. "Why do you?"  
  
"Huh?" Clark looked back and forth to the boy and the man in his arms. "What are you talking about? I can't be hurt like that."  
  
"Key word, Kal-El: kryptonite."  
  
Clark flinched. "But that's rare. I'm talking about the day-to-day stuff. Guns and bombs and cars and muggers and ... things you have to be afraid of. That I don't."  
  
"That's day-to-day? Remind me to buy a bullet-proof vest. Why do you think there are firefighters and volunteers, Kal? Why do you, we, look out for babies and people who can't help themselves? Why did your sperm and egg donors give up their own lives so that you would have a better chance to live?"  
  
"It's called loyalty, Clark," Jonathan added quietly. "The need to protect your friends, your family. It's hardwired into most species on Earth. To protect your people. Your own."  
  
"Call it morality. Community. Socialism. Whatever. It's a survival trait, one any mother can explain to you in words of one syllable. And either it's hardwired into you, too, or you've ingrained it. Because everyone who knows you has seen you take pain yourself, not just for the people you know, but for total strangers, hell, for people who were trying to kill you. If going out of your way to help other people, even if it means you could get hurt, is the definition of "human," then you take the blue ribbon."  
  
Clark refrained from shaking his head for fear of cracking Jonathan's spine. "I. Am. Not. Human."  
  
"If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.... You might want to get your dad to bed. And give him something to throw up into. Cellular reconstruction is a lot like a major serious drunken hangover. The poison leftovers have to come out somehow." Cyrus put an arm over his eyes. "And take your time. Neither of us is in the mood for speed right now."  
  
"I'll be right back." Clark walked carefully back to the house, where he turned an exhausted but much healthier Jonathan over to his mother.   
  
(Mom, mom. An Earthwoman who dared to love a dangerous exile from an unknown star. The only mom I'll ever know.)  
  
Chloe and Lana showed uncharacteristic good sense by hanging back, but Chloe couldn't be suppressed for long. "Okay, what did alien-boy do to Mr. Kent? Oops, no offense, Clark. Personally, I think you're a much better-looking alien. But what was that all about? Off the record, unless Bill says otherwise, of course."  
  
Lana sighed. "Chloe, I am going to start putting sleeping pills in your coffee. It's not enough what Clark has told us already?"  
  
"Do you even drink your own caffeine at all? Of course it's not enough. The guy resurrects your horse, but sends Mr. Kent into a screaming fit. I want to know what we're dealing with here. Besides an alien and a mutant. Next thing you know, the FBI and CIA and MIB and FEMA will be stiffing you on the bill at the Talon while they sniff around each other's butts and missing the meteors cold. Pay attention. Come on, Clark, next installment."  
  
"Bill is pretty bad off, too," Clark said carefully. "When he heals someone, it hurts him. I need to bring him back to someplace quiet."  
  
"Like Gem on that old Star Trek show. Gotcha." Chloe flipped out her cell phone. "Dad? I need the credit card for the night. No, not like that. Trust me, I'll pay it back. No, not like that either! Friend of a friend. Yes. No. Later. Thanks, dad. Love you."  
  
"Chloe, you weren't even born when that show came out."  
  
"Ever heard of the rerun channel, Clark? Of course you have. How many times have you seen ET? Go get Bill. Meet me at the car."  
  
"Chloe...."  
  
"Shut up. I always wanted to do something super-heroic. If this is the best I can do, it's not hardly the payback I owe you."  
  
"Chloe...?"  
  
"Shut up. Go get Bill." Clark took one look at her sapphire-laser eyes on the verge of becoming angry, and went to go get Bill.  
  
Cyrus was breathing deeply and carefully, controlling the pain-nausea. Healing damage that deep hurt almost as much as dishing it out. What the AI had done to Jonathan ... he hated Kal-El's ancestors with a serious passion.  
  
He would never dare let the abandoned and alone boy himself know that.  
  
"Hey, Kal." Barely a breath, but as much as he could muster. "Sorry. It's all I could do."  
  
"Shh." Clark didn't even want to think about the implications of the most powerful empath-healer on the planet admitting that he'd gone to his limits, and not succeeded. "Chloe says she can take you out of town to someplace quiet. Don't even think of arguing with her about it."  
  
"Chloe." Cyrus smiled tiredly. "She's a number. She'll make it right someday. Probably at nuclear-bomb-point. Forgive her, and stay friends with her, will you? Both of you have made mistakes, in the opposite direction. Maybe you can learn from each other." Cyrus closed his eyes. "Can we get to that someplace quiet now? And Kal, I'll take fast, if you don't mind me maybe throwing up. Mentally, kind of like you are physically ... around the green rocks...."  
  
Clark hit speed. They were at Chloe's car before Cyrus could heave even once. 


End file.
